pull-requests

Subscribe to all “pull-requests” posts via RSS or follow GitHub Changelog on Twitter to stay updated on everything we ship.

→ ~ cd github-changelog
→ ~/github-changelog|main git log main
showing all changes successfully

Pull request merge experience – April 3 update

Today we’re announcing recent fixes and enhancements to the improved pull request merge experience that became generally available earlier this month.

🆕 Status checks grouping preference

You can now choose to show the list of status checks as a single flat list or grouped by status. Click the settings gear and choose either “Group by status” (the default) or “No grouping“.

Image showing the new merge experience status checks section expanded with a new settings gear menu opened and showing 2 options for controlling how status checks are grouped (no grouping or grouping by status)

Recent fixes

Some of the noteworthy fixes that have landed in the last few weeks:

  • The time since a status check started (e.g. Started 2s ago) now updates consistently.
  • The Draft section was previously hidden for users without write access, making it difficult to know that the pull request was not ready for review.
  • A tooltip was previously not appearing when hovering over a truncated status check’s name, making it difficult to differentiate status checks with similar, long names.
  • Various fixes related to updating the pull request branch by rebasing.
  • Various improvements to performance, especially when there were a significant number of status checks.

Get help

To ask questions or provide feedback, join the discussion within GitHub Community.

See more

Improved pull request merge experience is now generally available

The improved merge experience on the pull request page is now generally available! This update is designed to help you better understand the state of your pull request and get it merged faster.

Screenshot of the updated merge box page on the pull request page showing it is approved, a list of status checks (some failing), and a message about not having any merge conflicts.

This experience supports all the usual ways of merging: direct, bypass and merge, auto-merge, and merge queue, and works with rulesets to ensure pull requests meet all the requirements to merge.

What’s new

The new experience is designed to feel familiar, but also improves on the previous experience. Here are some highlights:

  • Checks grouped by status: checks are now grouped by status with failing checks prioritized at the top of the list, making it easier to identify problems that need attention
  • Checks ordered logically: status checks are now ordered using natural ordering to make it easier to find a specific check, especially when the list gets long
  • Improved rule enforcement: errors resulting from failing commit metadata rules (like invalid commit messages) are now reported at the point of merging so they can be corrected
  • Improved accessibility: consistent keyboard navigation, focus management, and landmarks help make the experience more accessible to everyone

Get help

Learn more about merging a pull request.

To suggest a feature, report a problem, or discuss this improved experience, visit the GitHub Community.

See more

Improved pull request merge experience enabled by default in public preview

The improved merge experience on the pull request page announced in December will be enabled by default over the next few days! The feature remains in public preview while we address feedback (keep it coming!) and make final improvements before making it generally available later this quarter.

Screenshot of the updated merge box page on the pull request page showing that 1 review is required, a list of status checks (some failing), and a message about not having any merge conflicts.

This improved experience, while still familiar, is designed to help you better understand the state of your pull request and get it merged faster. To learn more, see the public preview announcement.

Recent fixes

There have been numerous bugs fixed and feature gaps filled since the public preview launched last year. Here are some notable fixes:

  • Fixed: Enabling auto-merge, deleting branch (after merging), or restoring branch previously failed with an unexpected error message.
  • Fixed: In certain scenarios, the commit author email address shown when merging the pull request would not match the email address in the resulting merge (or squash) commit.
  • Fixed: GitHub Actions workflow runs could only be approved from the classic merge experience.
  • Fixed: Status check durations were missing.

We’ve also made various improvements, including natural ordering for status checks. For a more complete list, see the recently fixed section of this discussion.

How to turn it off

To switch back to the classic experience, click the Switch back to the classic merge experience just below the merge experience on the Conversation page:

A screenshot showing how to switch back to the classic merge experience

If you want to return to the improved experience, click Try the new merge experience below the merge box on the pull request page:

A screenshot showing how to re-enable the improved merge experience

You can also toggle the experience via the feature preview dialog.

How to provide feedback

We want to hear from you! To provide feedback, ask questions, and see a list of known issues, visit the GitHub Community improved merge box discussion.

See more

Create pull request from an existing branch on GitHub Mobile

Screenshot of GitHub Mobile showing the option to create a pull request from an existing branch

With this update, developers can review edited files and open a pull request from an existing branch anytime, anywhere, making your workflow smoother when moving between desktop and mobile.

Simply tap the + button on the repository or pull request view, select a branch, review the code and create a pull request if everything looks good. You can then continue testing or making adjustments on the desktop, making the development process more flexible and efficient.

Download or update GitHub Mobile today from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store to get started.

Learn more about GitHub Mobile and share your feedback to help us improve.

Join the discussion within GitHub Community.

See more

Refreshed pull request commits page now generally available

The refreshed pull request commits page, which was previously in public preview, is now generally available! This updated page improves performance, is more consistent with other pages across GitHub, and is accessible to more users.

Screenshot of the updated PR commits page showing a list of commits for a PR

Your feedback during the public preview helped us deliver a better experience, including better keyboard navigation. If you have additional feedback, please let us know in the GitHub Community.

See more

Pull request merge method rule – Public Preview

Repository rules now allow you to enforce which merge methods are available when merging pull requests into a specified branch. The merge method rule is available for rulesets at the repository, organization and the enterprise level. Allowing you to choose between merge commit, squash, or rebase to ensure only the selected merge methods are allowed on the targeted branches across the user interface and APIs.

Screenshot of merge type rule selection

Learn more in the documentation and join the discussion within GitHub Community.

See more

Improved pull request merge experience now in public preview

To help you better understand the state of your pull request and get it merged faster, the merge experience on the pull request page has been improved! This experience is currently in public preview.

Screen shot of the updated merge box page on the pull request page showing that 1 review is required, a list of status checks (some failing), and a message about not having any merge conflicts.

What’s new

We’ve maintained the familiar look of the existing merge experience while incorporating several usability improvements:

  • Checks grouped by status: checks are now grouped by status with failing checks prioritized at the top of the list, making it easier to identify issues that need attention
  • Checks ordered alphabetically: status checks are now ordered alphabetically to make it easier to find a specific check
  • Commit metadata validation: errors from failing commit metadata rules (like non-compliant commit messages) can now be corrected and retried
  • Improved accessibility: consistent keyboard navigation, focus management, and landmarks help make the experience more accessible to everyone

For a more complete list of changes visit the feedback discussion.

Try it out

This improved experience is rolling out gradually and is turned off by default. Once it becomes available to you, a Try the new merge experience link will appear below the merge box on the pull request page:

Image

Click it to switch to the improved experience. A link is also available for easily switching back to the existing experience. You can also toggle the experience via the feature preview dialog.

Known issues

As this experience is in public preview, you may run into some bugs and missing features (let us know when you do). Some of the known issues include:

  • Actions workflows requiring approval cannot be approved currently
  • Changing the commit author email when merging is not currently supported

For a more complete list of known issues visit the feedback discussion.

Feedback

We want to hear from you! To provide feedback, ask questions, and see a list of known issues, visit the GitHub Community improved merge box discussion!

See more

Refine and validate code review suggestions with Copilot Workspace (public preview)

Code reviews and suggestions from colleagues, integrators, and AI agents like Copilot code review and Copilot autofix increase your code’s quality, but at times they can get overwhelming. You can now use Copilot Workspace directly in the context of your pull request to quickly refine, test, and incorporate code review feedback and suggestions from teammates and AI agents. Ship faster without compromising quality.

To get access, sign up for the waitlist here. This will also give you access to Copilot code review.

Copilot workspace with Copilot Review task

Using Copilot Workspace in your PRs, you can:

  • Review and incorporate code suggestions from teammates and AI agents in the context of the PR with an improved diff-viewing experience.
  • Refine and address merge-blocking feedback from directly within the PR with an improved code editing experience complete with language services and Copilot completions.
  • Build, test, and run proposed changes in the PR without affecting your personal build and test environment.

Validating an applied security autofix in Copilot Workspace

For more information see our documentation, or join the discussion within GitHub Community.

See more

Pull request commits page refresh (public beta)

The pull request commits page has been refreshed to improve performance, improve consistency with other pages, and to make the experience more accessible!

Screenshot of the updated PR commits page showing a list of commits for a PR

To minimize disruptions, the capabilities of the classic commits page have been maintained, with a few exceptions: you can now use arrow keys to navigate the list of commits (instead of j and k) and focus indicators have been improved for better visual distinction.

Opt out

To switch back to the classic commits page, disable the “New Pull Request Commits Experience” feature preview (learn more).

Feedback

To provide feedback, ask questions, learn about known issues, visit the GitHub Community feedback discussion!

See more

Push rules public beta

Say goodbye to unwanted files cluttering your repos, like *.jar or *.so. And limit who can make updates to sensitive files like your Actions workflows with the public beta of push rules. 🎉

A glimpse of push rules in action

You can now enable a new type of ruleset that allows you to control pushes to repositories based on file extensions, file path lengths, file and folder paths and file sizes. Push rules don’t require any branch targeting as they apply to every push to the repository, and also apply to all forks of the repo to ensure all pushes to the repository network are protected.

Push rules are now available for private and internal repositories for GitHub Teams, and across organizations for GitHub Enterprise Cloud.

Learn more about push rules in our documentation and join the community discussion to leave feedback.

See more

Introducing Enhanced Code Review on GitHub Mobile

PR review improvements

We’ve got some exciting news to share! We’ve been closely listening to your feedback, and one common challenge many of you faced was reviewing, and submitting your pull request reviews on GitHub Mobile. We heard you loud and clear, and today, we’re thrilled to announce that approving PRs is now easier than ever before!

With our latest update, we made it easier to start, continue, and submit your code reviews on the go.

Now, whether you’re on the train, grabbing a coffee, or simply away from your desk, you can effortlessly contribute to your projects and keep the momentum going.

Download or update GitHub Mobile today from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store to get started.

Learn more about GitHub Mobile and share your feedback to help us improve.

See more

The Comment Box Becomes More Consistent and Accessible

We are excited to announce a significant update to the comment box used in GitHub issues, discussions, and pull requests, aiming to refine and enhance how you interact and collaborate. This release is a testament to our ongoing efforts to provide an exceptional user experience, making GitHub more intuitive, consistent, and accessible across the platform.

A screenshot of the new comment box

The updated comment box is designed to integrate seamlessly with the existing GitHub environment, ensuring a familiar yet improved experience for all users. Highlights and improvements include:

  • Enhanced User Experience: The newly revamped comment box brings an elevated experience to a wider range of users across various devices. With this update, we've enhanced the responsiveness and streamlined the markup to better accommodate keyboard and screen reader users. This ensures a uniform and smooth user experience across issues, discussions, and pull requests, promoting seamless communication and collaboration.
  • Consistency and Familiarity: Our design philosophy for the new comment box was clear: keep it familiar, make it better. We’ve developed the updated version to closely resemble the original while enhancing it with improved accessibility, consistency, and ease of use across various screen sizes. The transition for you will be smooth, with no disruptions to your workflow.
  • Commitment to Accessibility: This update contributes to our continuous journey to make GitHub more accessible to everyone. The comment box now aligns more closely with our accessibility commitment, enhancing the experience in features such as issues, pull requests, and discussions. Check out our Accessibility Commitment to learn more about how we are making GitHub more inclusive.

We are excited for you to experience the new comment box and we welcome feedback to continue improving GitHub for everyone.

See more

Repository Rules – Public Beta – History, Import, Export

Need to roll back a change to a ruleset? How about easily moving your ruleset around?

With today’s public beta you now have new tools to manage your ruleset.

Import and Export

Rulesets are now easier to share and reuse, with the ability to import and export rulesets as JSON files. Giving you the ability to share rules across repositories and organizations or to share your favorite rules with the community. Which is what we’re doing. The ruleset-recipes repository is home to a collection of pre-baked rulesets covering a number of popular scenarios ready for you to use.

Gif walking through the steps outline above to import a ruleset from a JSON file.

History

If you are a repository or organization administrator of GitHub Enterprise cloud, we’re adding a history experience so you can track changes and revert rulesets. Now, it’s easy in the ruleset UI to see who changed a ruleset, when it happened, and what changed. Then, quickly get back to a known good state.

Only changes made to a ruleset after the public beta are included in ruleset history.

Gif walking through the step of using history, and selecting a ruleset version to restore.Screenshot of Ruleset history comparison screen.

Click here to learn more. If you have feedback, please share and let us know in our community discussion.

See more

GitHub Repository Custom Properties Beta

PNG Custom Properties Header.

Starting today, organization administrators can create custom properties to enrich repositories with valuable information. Using these properties, you can dynamically target repository rules to apply protections on just your production repositories or to a business unit or any other way you want to classify your repositories.

Only organization administrators can configure custom properties; you can be confident knowing that they are not accidentally removed by a repository administrator, ensuring your branch and tag rules are consistently applied. Property values can also be automatically applied with default values at repository creation, ensuring every new repository is classified, and its first commit is protected.

Today, organization administrators can only use custom properties for dynamically targeting rulesets. But soon, you can use properties to filter and search in an updated repository list and other experiences across GitHub.

Learn more about managing custom properties for your organization and managing rulesets for your organization.

Head over to community discussions for feedback

See more

Requiring workflows with Repository Rules is generally available

Requiring Actions workflows with Repository Rules is now generally available on GitHub.com!
Screenshot showing the add required workflow modal overtop the enabled rule inside a ruleset

Through Repository Rules, GitHub Enterprise Cloud customers can now set up organization-wide rules to enforce their CI/CD workflows, ensuring workflows pass before pull requests can be merged into target repositories. Additional settings allow for fine-tuning how the workflow file can be selected — either from a specific branch, tag, or SHA — and provide maximum control over the version expected to run.

Applying a newly created workflow policy across an organization can feel risky. To ensure confidence when enabling a workflow rule across targeted repositories, workflow rules can be put into “evaluate” mode which will validate the rule is working correctly. And don’t worry, organization administrators can even allow select roles to “break the glass” and bypass a rule when necessary.

Learn more about this release and how requiring workflows with Repository Rules can protect your repositories.

To share feedback or ask questions, join our Community Discussion!

See more
View more changes