Add GitHub Action to track forward-ports from stable branches to RC

[robin-drexler]

Summary

Sometimes folks merge PRs to a stable branch (e.g. 2026-04) but forget to forward-port to the current RC (2026-07-rc). When the RC becomes the next stable, those changes could get silently missing and it is a lot of effort to find them close to the release. We can't catch this by comparing commits either sicne the RC has often diverged enough that the patch is genuinely different.

This adds a GitHub Action that does two things:

• On PR opened against a stable branch (20XX-XX) → tag with needs-rc-port and post a comment with copy-paste reference snippets pointing at the current RC.
• On PR merged into the RC branch (20XX-XX-rc) → parse the body for Forward-port of #X references, remove the label from each referenced PR, and post a Forward-ported in #Y confirmation comment back on the original.

Open debt is just is:pr label:needs-rc-port. If a change is genuinely stable-only, a maintainer can drop the label by hand.
Once we have the labels, we can build tooling and dashboards to catch missed PRs earlier and ping folks to take care of them.

Flow

---
config:
  theme: neutral
---
flowchart TD
    A([PR opened against stable branch e.g. 2026-04]) --> B[Bot adds needs-rc-port label]
    B --> C[Bot posts comment with reference templates]
    C --> D[PR merged into stable branch]
    D --> E{Forward-port needed?}
    E -->|yes| F[Author opens forward-port PR<br/>against current RC e.g. 2026-07-rc]
    F --> G[PR body includes: Forward-port of #X]
    G --> H[Forward-port PR merged]
    H --> I[Bot parses body, finds referenced PR]
    I --> J[Bot removes needs-rc-port label]
    J --> K[Bot posts: Forward-ported in #Y]
    E -->|no, stable-only change| L[Maintainer removes label manually]

    style B fill:#fff4cc,stroke:#d4a72c
    style C fill:#fff4cc,stroke:#d4a72c
    style I fill:#fff4cc,stroke:#d4a72c
    style J fill:#fff4cc,stroke:#d4a72c
    style K fill:#fff4cc,stroke:#d4a72c

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Editable on mermaid.shopify.io: https://mermaid.shopify.io/edit#pako:eNqNk0FP4zAQhf_KKL2AVAOqKpAixIq2FFpAQhWHXaU9OPY4iXDsynaoorb_HccJbHtBPeSU78178ybZRkxzjOKIELJUTCtRZPFSAbgcS4xBYeUMlUsV3gupNyynxsH7pIEA7s-StwXoNSrkQDNaKOvAOppKhNRQxXLAi-wCBleDa3I1XJ0DIXcwSkbaAeXcegPklhhG1tqPlTRFuWpHjwI6DuhaW2eB6bJE5WBTuBwMCjSoGILDci2pQ9sJx0E4aYKVaDIfrFBOH6fq0ElAH7ZTbTbU8DZEEwn5n32LPDTIrka7g2lyX7lcm7CvBXEoelvcpuby7rsCVhnTRF2MD_e_8Yt2ztPg_NiETDWvfUQmK442hqMsWkDvbyd5DJKnZHrs2y3ZQU8BmrWtUWPRhvl9EIXydf-0xr2yk8yCZB4kBkv9ib-dZR7o5_9nOU4c2obev9Vhe0r3u_qJVrIG_w2pDHfwkrz6upx_0PxYBzMoqaqolLWf006yrvbXG_k9pIx7QoghY33rjP7AuMeH9GbADsHxqeDsVHB-Kvj8Oxj1I3-xkhY8irdR-M_8_8dR0Eq6aL__Ata5KYk

🎩

I'm afraid we'll have to merge it to test it. I'm not aware of a way to easily test this without creating a fork etc.

Since this is low risk and impact, I think it's fine to merge, test and adjust.

[github-actions]

🚨🚨🚨 Docs migration in progress 🚨🚨🚨

We are actively migrating UI extension reference docs to MDX in the areas/platforms/shopify-dev zone of the monorepo. This impacts docs for the following surfaces:

• Admin UI extensions
• App Home
• Checkout UI extensions
• Customer account UI extensions
• POS UI extensions

During this migration, please be aware of the following:

.doc.ts files are being deprecated. Changes to .doc.ts files in this repo will not be reflected in the new MDX-based docs. If you need to update docs for a reference that has already been migrated, make your changes directly in the areas/platforms/shopify-dev zone of the monorepo instead.

Doc comments in .ts source files (the comment blocks above types and functions) are also affected. Generating docs from these comments currently requires a newer version of the @shopify/generate-docs library that isn't yet available. Updates to doc comments may not produce the expected output until the migration is complete.

Examples that previously lived in this repo are being moved to the areas/platforms/shopify-dev zone of the monorepo and should be authored there going forward.

What should I do?

• If your PR includes changes to .doc.ts files, doc comments, or examples, please reach out to us in #devtools-proj-templated-refs so we can help ensure your updates are captured correctly.
• If your PR is limited to source code changes (non-docs), you can ignore this notice.

Thanks for your patience while we complete the migration! 🙏

[andrewmcgov]

Thanks for adding this!

Will this still run on older branches even if the workflow is only in 2026-07-rc?

[robin-drexler]

@andrewmcgov I'm not sure... For now I've actually built it in a way what it only flags PRs if you are adding to the latest stable branch because I want to avoid that people get pinged for every PR when they backport e.g. a bugfix a bunch of versions

[andrewmcgov]

@robin-drexler I think thats fine - the bulk of work right now will only be on the latest versions