[feature request] ability to require specific previous status before changing to new status

[tyler-dot-earth]

current problem scenario: if team member moves status to "QA ready" manually while in review, the current setup will always move the notion status back to (whatever status it sets it to now).

let's allow ability to constrain changes and set sensible default from known previous->next states

[charliecreates]

Expand this to see my work.

• Summarized the status-transition constraint goals for #1 and identified where to hook transition checks into the existing NotionStatusFromPullRequestSchema → notion.setNotionStatus() flow in src/services/github/service.ts.
• Scanned the core Notion integration (NotionLive in src/services/notion/service.ts, src/services/notion/api.ts, and NotionWorkflowStatusSchema / NotionStatusFromPullRequestSchema in src/services/notion/schema.ts) to understand how statuses are currently derived and written.
• Reviewed AppConfig in src/platform/schema.ts and confirmed there were no existing toggles for transition behavior, then added an optional notionStatusTransitionRules entry wired to NOTION_STATUS_TRANSITION_RULES JSON for environment-specific rules.
• Created src/services/notion/transitions.ts with NotionStatusTransitionRule, NotionStatusTransitionRules, defaultNotionStatusTransitionRules, parseNotionStatusTransitionRulesJson, buildNotionStatusTransitionRules, and isNotionStatusTransitionAllowed() to constrain updates to valid workflow paths and prefer NotionWorkflowStatus.PRMerged.
• Updated NotionLive in src/services/notion/service.ts to build merged transition rules from config and added getNotionPageStatusName to read the current Notion Status property before setNotionStatus decides whether to update.
• Enhanced setNotionStatus in src/services/notion/service.ts to return { pageId, newStatus, statusUpdated, previousStatus, requiredPrevious }, performing a dry-run short-circuit when NOTION_DRY_RUN is true and otherwise blocking disallowed transitions via isNotionStatusTransitionAllowed() before calling notion.pages.update().
• Adjusted the Notion service mock in src/services/__tests__/program.test.ts so setNotionStatus now returns statusUpdated, previousStatus, and requiredPrevious, and extended the updatedTasks expectation objects accordingly to keep the GitHub→Notion integration test passing.
• Added src/services/notion/__tests__/transitions.test.ts with unit tests for buildNotionStatusTransitionRules and isNotionStatusTransitionAllowed() covering default blocking of manual "QA ready" overwrites, normal workflow transitions, null/unknown statuses, and JSON-configurable extra previous statuses.
• Re-ran pnpm -s format:check, then applied the suggested change to src/services/notion/service.ts and verified pnpm -s format:fix && pnpm -s lint:check completed cleanly, followed by pnpm -s types:check && pnpm -s test:run where all 4 test files passed (1 skipped) and 17 tests passed (2 todo).
• Pushed a follow-up commit docs: clarify Notion Status property assumption (see latest on ai-1-feature-request-ability-to-require-specific-p in PR #2) to document the Status property expectation in NotionLive and confirmed the branch is up to date on GitHub.

[charliecreates]

Implemented transition-guarded Notion status updates so GitHub webhook events won’t “flip back” a task if someone manually moved it to something like “QA ready”. This is up in PR #2.

Changes

• Added NOTION_STATUS_TRANSITION_RULES (optional JSON) to constrain previousStatus -> nextStatus updates.
• Default behavior now only updates Notion when the current status is still in the workflow statuses this service owns (prevents overwriting manual statuses like QA ready).
• setNotionStatus now returns extra metadata (statusUpdated, previousStatus, requiredPrevious) so it’s obvious when an update was blocked.
• Updated docs (README.md + .env.example) and added tests for the transition logic.

Example override (allow updating to “In review” even if it’s currently “QA ready”):

NOTION_STATUS_TRANSITION_RULES='{"In review":["In progress","In review","QA ready"],"PR merged":"*"}'

Verification

# Biome format: checked 29 files
pnpm -s format:check

# Biome lint: checked 29 files
pnpm -s lint:check

# TypeScript: no errors
pnpm -s types:check

# Vitest: Test Files 4 passed | 1 skipped; Tests 15 passed | 2 todo (17)
pnpm -s test:run