Duplicate inbox reports and competing PRs for one fix (tracking) #90190

Tracking issue for the class of failure where Self-driving opens several inbox reports, or several PRs, for one underlying fix. Two production cases on 2026-08-27 surfaced three distinct mechanisms; each child issue closes one of them and is labelled self-driving for implementation.

Mechanisms and issues

A. Grouping retrieval miss (same signal text, different reports)

• fix(signals): grouping never searches with the signal's own embedding, so paraphrase drift hides obvious duplicates #90184 grouping never searches with the signal's own embedding

B. Shared root cause invisible to grouping (different signals, same fix)

• fix(error-tracking): signals omit the event origin, so dev-host noise becomes duplicate reports and PRs #90178 error-tracking signals omit the event origin (host, dev-host flag)
• feat(signals): skip auto-start when a sibling report already names the same fix #90186 skip auto-start when a sibling report already names the same fix
• feat(signals): steering for error tracking, session replay and health checks sources #90188 steering for error tracking, session replay and health checks sources

C. Research missed an in-flight PR, or a re-run ignored the verdict

• feat(signals): hand research the team's open self-driving PRs instead of relying on gh pr list #90187 hand research the team's open self-driving PRs
• fix(signals): re-running a failed implementation task ignores a later already_addressed verdict #90185 re-running a failed implementation task ignores a later already_addressed verdict

First-impression amplifier

• fix(signals): the enablement backfill fans the five newest issues into separate reports and PRs within minutes #90189 the enablement backfill fans the five newest issues into separate reports and PRs within minutes

Suggested order

#90185 and #90184 are small and independent. #90186 and #90187 together close the competing-PR hole and are the highest leverage. #90178 unlocks #90188 and part of #90189.

Context

Origin: Slack thread. Investigation write-ups and a symptom-to-mechanism reference live in the self-driving-debugging skill in the skills store (references/duplicate-reports-or-competing-prs.md).