"Could you help on project X and implement that straight forward feature?"

So I clone the repo. Run the tests in the main branch. 20 tests fail.

Yes, this will be fun and very simple ...

I've seen similar but for me it was: I get asked to take over from someone who left to get a pull request approved and then realise that the ONE unit test that they added is actually an end to end test that fails 3/4 of the way through in some overly complex code that uses multithreading for limiting requests to an API.

The tests return an empty file, the code was never approved, yet the branch was used in a production Jenkins job.

Who said 'straightforward feature?' Bet it was either the client, or a manager; surely not a dev…

You should slap them around a bit with a large trout.

Or else say, 'If it's so straightforward, why don't you implement it yourself?'