[Idea] Optional Builds for PR Validation

[ChrisBlankDe]

Idea Description

I would like to propose a new setting: optionalPatternForPrValidation.

The idea is that this setting is a string array containing patterns (regex and/or wildcard-like patterns) that are matched against job names in the build matrix.

For pull request status checks, the behavior would change as follows:

• Today: the PR check fails if any matrix job fails.
• Proposed: if a failed job matches a pattern in optionalPatternForPrValidation, the overall PR status check can still pass.

Use Case

A good example is running validation against nextminor in pull requests.
This validation is very valuable for compatibility insights, but it may not always need to block the PR.

Open Questions

1. Should pattern matching use wildcard/like logic (similar to conditional settings) or regex?
2. Would it make sense to automatically post/update a PR comment when only optional jobs fail?
   • This would make the result easy to trace later.
   • It could also help teams enforce policies through comment resolution.

Note: AI only helped me phrase this text. The thoughts and ideas behind it are my own.

Contribution (Optional)

• I would be open to contributing to this idea (implementation, documentation, testing, etc.)