Improved pull request merge experience (public preview) feedback

[willsmythe]

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.

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

Stay tuned here for more updates

Try it out

👉 👉 👉 This experience is rolling out gradually and so is not yet available to everyone. 👈 👈 👈

Once available, you will see a Try the new merge experience link below the merge box on the pull request page:

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 🔴 🔴 🔴

You will run into some bugs and missing features (let us know when you do if not listed here).

Bugs

1. A page refresh is sometimes required to show latest status and correct actions/buttons (like after all checks have completed)
2. Documentation URLs appear as text and are not clickable
3. Misalignment/wonkiness with check status icon (possibly Safari-only)
4. Clicking the Resolve conflicts button results in a 404/Not Found
5. Bypass checkbox not visible / user blocked from merging with The base branch does not accept merge commits.
6. Clicking Delete branch / Restore branch fails with a Couldn't update branch message (likely occurs only in PRs from forks)

Recently fixed

• FIXED 2024-11-09: Enabling auto-merge fails with a "not found" error
• FIXED 2024-11-12: Admin bypass checkbox not always appearing preventing users from bypassing merge requirements
• FIXED 2024-11-14: Styling of the Delete branch button is sometimes missing (fixed by reloading the page)

Planned changes

• Restore branch button is easily confused for Delete branch. Plan: move the Restore branch button to the timeline button in this location will be Delete branch.
• Use natural/logical ordering for status checks to help with numeric matrix build ordering

Looking for feedback 🔈 🔈

• Collapse the grouping of "passing" checks by default
• Show the grouping of "in progress" status checks above the grouping of "pending"
• In the current experience, the confirmation form (which appears after clicking "merge") replaces the entire merge experience, but is simply appended in the new experience. Like? Some options:
  • Replicate the behavior of the current experience
  • Open a dialog

Missing features (feature gaps)

Features currently missing, but are coming:

• Actions workflows requiring approval cannot be approved currently
• The browser tab icon (favicon) does not currently reflect the pull request's merge status
• Changing the commit author email when merging is not currently supported
• Command line instructions are missing
• Reviews cannot be dismissed, re-requested, etc from the review section
• Status check durations (how long a check has been running / took to run)

Feedback

We want to hear from you! Post your comments, questions, likes, and dislikes below.

[codeithuman]

Where is the "Merge without waiting for requirements to be met (bypass branch protections)" checkbox?

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New

[marcellino-ornelas]

If your on the new UI and the button is not shown, if you "switch back to the classic merge experience", you see the checkbox again. Then if you change back to the new UI again, the checkbox now shows up.

[marcellino-ornelas]

Oh it might be related to draft PRs. I opened a test PR right now without going to draft and button showed up.

marcellino-ornelas/templates#246

[willsmythe]

A fix for the bypass checkbox not appearing is in the queue (should get deployed today).

There also may still be an issue with this checkbox not appearing until the page is refreshed. We're tracking this.

[willsmythe]

@codeithuman - can you check if the bypass checkbox is appearing as expected now?

[Rockyspade]

Where is the "Merge without waiting for requirements to be met (bypass branch protections)" checkbox?

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New

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback / write-up. Definitely agree. This check box appears for some users in some scenarios, but there's clearly a bug here where it's not appearing for everyone. We're investigating.

[seesharprun]

I like this feature so far, but the only transient bug I've seen is sometimes the checks show up fine while they are processing, but once all checks have passed, they all disappear. If you select the arrow to expand, it shows an empty list. I need to refresh the browser to see the passing checks.

Again, just a small client-side issue that I'm seeing in Edge 130.0.2849.68

[willsmythe]

Thanks for reporting. If you (or anyone else) is able (and comfortable) to capture a quick video and include here as a reply, please do!

If you select the arrow to expand

Are you referring to the caret 1) on the right side of the merge box, or 2) next to "X successful checks"?

[willsmythe]

I added this issue to the Known issues > Bugs section in the description above. Check there for updates, and to see other issues we're tracking.

[chamini2]

Again, just a small client-side issue that I'm seeing in Edge 130.0.2849.68

for a second I thought you commented your IP

[thomas-bc]

The "view command line instructions" can be handy. It used to be a clickable element that extends to show CLI commands. It is not anymore. Could be good to add back in?

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback. This is coming! See the Known issues > Feature gaps list above.

[tzing]

The new look on that PR successfully merged message confused me.

Its appearance is quite similar to the message of you can click this button to delete the branch on the classic pane. This look makes me wonder if the auto delete branch feature is broken.

[akaday]

The new merge message appearance is quite similar to the "delete branch" message on the classic pane, causing confusion. It makes me wonder if the auto-delete branch feature is broken. Could you please clarify or adjust the UI to make the distinction clearer? Also, it's critical to bypass branch protections for urgent hotfixes. Ensuring this functionality is available is essential for maintaining workflow efficiency.

[tzing]

This one ⬇️

In the classic layout, it shows this purple-outlined message when the branch IS NOT DELETED. But in this preview, it shows the message when the branch IS DELETED.

When I left the original comment, I was working on a repo that I assume the 'auto delete head branch' is on. That successfully merged and closed message shows and misleads me as if the branch is not deleted yet - until I read those low-lighted description.

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback. We are planning to move Restore branch into the timeline to minimize confusing it for Delete branch (and because restoring the branch is not a super common task). Track this above in Known issues > Planned changes.

[kaoths]

---

The "Delete branch" button CSS/style sometimes doesn't load.
This sometimes appears after merging a PR.
It does not affect any functionalities. Just the visual issue, reloading the page fixes it.

[CantBeSubh]

I faced same issue on Arc Browser

[tarilabs]

Same problem, google chrome on Mac

[a-stankevich]

Same happens occasionally in Firefox, Windows

[kaoths]

Sorry for late reply, I'm seeing this on Arc browser.

[willsmythe]

This should be resolved now. If anyone is still experiencing this, let us know!

[getchoo]

Here is the new experience on a PR with an approval from a reviewer without write access, that has also passed all CI:

Displaying red around this feels a bit odd to me. My first thought when I see it is that CI has failed, changes have been requested, or maybe that there are required approvals/checks still being waited on? (None of these are the case in this repository, which is nixpkgs)

In comparison, the classic merge experience has a green accent:

(I also noticed the new experience shows the approval of the reviewer w/o write access. This is an awesome addition for nixpkgs, so thanks!)

The use of green lets a PR author or committer know at a glance that it should be good to merge. I'd much rather keep this behavior :)

[simon-abbott]

[shaedrich]

Maybe something like this then:

[jsoref]

It shouldn't be red. At most it's informative (gray).

[shaedrich]

I just had that discussion here: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/143787#discussioncomment-11206819

[BhaaLseN]

Adding my +1 here. Having both the symbol and the border red when nothing else inside the box is red is feels weird, as if there is something to do for someone to address an issue. As someone that simply doesn't have merge permissions, the old experience had it green (because everything's fine, no checks failed, no reviews blocking it) The only thing that "blocks" anything is me not having merge permissions.

And it feels odd to force the red border with the previous suggestions of adding a failed thing in there just to have more red.

I always saw that box at the end as "PR status (as far as the project is concerned)" and not "PR status (as far as I'm concerned)". And if someone can merge it no problem, then it should be green in my head (even if I can't merge it).

I do see some value in making this different for the PR author if it adds value for them, but as project member doing reviews I don't see the added value of bringing something to my attention in a rather distracting way that I both know of and can't do anything about myself.

[asilbek-ismoilov]

Very good

[khoatranthanh]

[willsmythe]

Thanks for reporting. We're planning to move the Restore branch button (see Known issues > Planned changes). Regarding the missing styling, this is something we're tracking for the Delete branch button too (see Known issues > Bugs).

[willsmythe]

This should be fixed now.

[halamix2]

"Enable auto-merge" button is replaced with "Squash and auto-merge" which is broken:
Instead of marking the PR to be auto-merged it simply displays "Not Found" error below the button

Console logs just displays 404 on POST to https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/pull/531/page_data/enable_auto_merge

[willsmythe]

Thanks for reporting. We're investigating.

[willsmythe]

The team is reviewing a fix for this.

[willsmythe]

A fix for this problem rolled out on Friday! 🎉

Let us know if you're still seeing this problem.

[halamix2]

It's fixed now, thanks <3

[leoskyrocker]

it's buggy and requires a page refresh before the merge button works even when all the checks are already passing, overall it feels less real time than before

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback. Definitely a problem. We're investigating.

[willsmythe]

Are there any required status checks? Or just optional? Or a mix?

[dg6862]

I have the same issue. We have several optional checks and one required.

[willsmythe]

A fix is underway for this. Should deploy by early next week.

[Lamparter]

Merge is not an allowed merge method in this repository.
You're not authorized to push to this branch. Visit https://docs.github.com/repositories/configuring-branches-and-merges-in-your-repository/managing-protected-branches/about-protected-branches for more information.

files-community/Files#16445

Sorry for the oversized screenshot! I noticed the text merge is not an allowed merge method in this repository in a repository I don't control - I'm assuming this isn't intended and so reporting it here.

[kennytv]

I like that the list of checks is grouped collapsed now, though when expanding it, I'd want all of them to be opened by default, including successful checks. In the example below, it currently only expands skipped checks:

I also feel like the red outline for awaiting reviews is a bit too aggressive, especially when coupled with removing so much green (no full checkmark as well as including skipped checks as gray in the outline).

[spytheman]

I do not want the list of checks to expand like that - I have over 40 jobs, and expanding just the section I clicked on, is exactly as it should be.

If I want to see/check the successful ones, I can just click on them.

[spytheman]

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

THANK YOU 🙇🏻‍♂️ ❤️ 🥳 !

[spytheman]

I have a repository that has over 40 jobs that are commonly running and sometimes depending on what is changed, that can grow up to 76. Previously I had to scroll/hunt for the failing jobs A LOT.
The improvement in this alone, made my daily Github experience a lot better 🥳 .

[Lukeghenco]

We are glad to hear about this. GitHub developers have infinitely more than 76 on many of our repos (as do a ton of larger repositories using GitHub), so this was something we felt would really help the DX. Thank you for the feedback.

[joshhunt]

Bringing failing checks to the top is a huge win. Thanks for this 🙌

[genintho]

Checks ordered alphabetically: status checks are now ordered alphabetically to make it easier to find a specific check

The sorting is braking. little bit when using matrix with numbers.

[willsmythe]

Totally agree. We have an internal issue tracking this. I'll add it to the list of Known issues > Planned changes above.

[seancolsen]

With the new merge experience, I can't figure out how to approve my GitHub actions CI to run for a community contributor's PR on my open source project.

Old merge experience	New merge experience

I had to switch back to the old merge experience to click the "Approve and run" button.

[TheGiraffe3]

Actions workflows requiring approval cannot be approved currently

Looks like that's a known bug (under "Missing Features" in the original post).

[jamonation]

Came here thinking it was just me. Spent the day waiting on CI, digging through CI logs and troubleshooting what I thought was a failing action without realizing the button was missing.

Is there a way to surface a list of missing features on the new page somehow while they're being worked on?

[DIDIx13]

Would be nice to have a Merge when checks passes

Didn't found an equivalent in GitHub yet. Would be nice to implement with the revamp?

[duglin]

usually less clicks provide a better UX. So even if the "failed" section is auto-expanded, the "successful" section isn't. In some cases this might be good (like if it's a long list), but in other cases (when it's shorter) I think showing the check names/status (w/o clicking) is more visually pleasing. You may want to consider auto-expanding in cases where the # of checks is < 10. Of course, at that point the grouping/twisties aren't needed at all.

[LucasBrandt]

I am missing the ability to perform the merge operation by hitting CMD+Enter in the description box after editing the message body.

[efip-ns]

Misalignment/wonkiness with check status icon (possibly Safari-only)

Also, "possibly non-100% view only", more than 100% view:

Less than 100% view:

[mihai-vp]

It's not a major issue, but with the old PR system, once all the required checks for the merge were completed, the section would turn green and allow me to merge the changes. However, in the new version, even after all the required checks are successfully completed, it doesn’t automatically refresh or enable the merge button. I have to manually refresh the browser before the button updates to allow merging. (This is on firefox 132.0.2)

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Old

[willsmythe]

We are testing a fix for this and it should be rolled out today if all goes well.

[blorente]

I think I ran into a bug with the auto-squash and merge system.
My organization requires me to sign my commits with a work email, and has a PR check to enforce that. Since I enabled the new UI, whenever I enable automatic squash-and-merge, the commits are signed with my Primary email (my personal email), instead of the work email.

This is odd, because the second time it happened I made sure that the UI said "the resulting commit will be authored by '[email protected]'", and yet the commit was signed with my personal address.

Otherwise, love the UI!

[alvarohulse]

I really like the new UI. The information is present really well, but the pitch-black background for the info bothers me a bit. This seems like an intentional design choice, though. To me, it'd be perfect to see a softer colour instead.

[motoi-dev]

Using 11 inch iPad pro, the merge button overlaps the text.

[sl-nigelalmada]

Squash and merge function does not use (at least by default) the Pull Request title and seems to use instead one of (or the first) PR's commit message

[YourYoungerBrothersPug]

still shows as red even though everyone has approved

[simon-abbott]

It's red because merging is blocked (see the 3rd section). But I think that is a bit confusing because that icon is grey, not red.

[matthewfeickert]

I've found that with this new merge experience enabled after a PR of mine is closed that sometimes, but not all the time, when I click "Delete branch"

I get a

Couldn't update branch
Not Found

error

though the branch is still clearly there. This does not happen ever with the "classic" merge experience and if I revert to it I'm able to delete branches fine.

[GearsDatapacks]

I've had this issue also

[willsmythe]

Thanks for reporting. There appears to be a bug with the permission check (it's checking against the base repository instead of the head repository, which can be different when the PR is created from a fork). I added this to the list of known issues above.

[tino]

I like it!

Collapse the grouping of "passing" checks by default

Yes, makes sense to me. I would also appreciate it if the "skipped" group was collapsed by default too.

Show the grouping of "in progress" status checks above the grouping of "pending"

I would prefer that, yes.

---

Not sure if this is in scope, but having the option to set rebasing as the default (or only) option for resolving "this branch is out of date with the base branch" would also be really appreaciated!

[waqasCodeNinja]

loading bug while creating the pull request
many times, I need to refresh page to merge
is it a feature or something

[eScribMac]

The merging is blocked heading looks like it's communicating an error or failure, which isn't really the case if you just need approval