First class notifications to commit / merge author for confirm and failed tracked runs

To make merge then apply safe in practice, we need the right person to be notified at the right time. Today, when a tracked run on the default branch is waiting for confirmation, or when it fails, it is too easy for the original author to miss it. This is especially painful when an apply fails on main and quietly leaves the branch in a bad state.

We would like a built-in way to configure, per stack or per space, that Spacelift automatically notifies the commit or merge author whenever: (a) a tracked run on the default branch is waiting for confirmation, and (b) a tracked run on the default branch fails. The key channel for us is Slack, ideally with a direct mention in a team channel, with email as a nice-to-have.

We can build this ourselves with notification policies, Rego and external glue against your APIs and GitHub, but that increases our maintenance burden. Having “notify commit/merge author on confirm/fail” as a first class option would solve a very common operational problem without requiring each customer to reinvent it.