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

• Admin bypass checkbox not always appearing preventing users from bypassing merge requirements
• Styling of the Delete branch button is sometimes missing (fixed by reloading the page)
• Enabling auto-merge fails with a "not found" error
• Merge button remains disabled after checks have passed (requires refreshing the page)

Planned changes

Changes we are planning to make (stay tuned):

• 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.
• Styling of the border around the merge experience and its icon does not always match the current state of the pull request (e.g. the PR has passed all checks, but is styled as failing 🔴 because the user doesn't have permission to merge)
• Use natural/logical ordering for status checks to help with numeric matrix build ordering

Missing features

Features currently missing, but are coming:

• Actions workflows requiring approval cannot be approved currently
• The browser tab icon 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

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?

Old

New

[HazimAr]

^

[norwd]

@github, this is critical functionality, our company can't deploy emergency hotfixes if admins can't bypass required checks. Please fix before making this the default 🙏

[willsmythe]

Thanks for reporting. This check box is working for some users, but not for many of you apparently 😄! We are investigating.

[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.

[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.

[willsmythe]

What browser are you seeing this on?

[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.

[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 :)

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback. Totally agree. This is now listed under Known issues > Planned changes above. Check there for updates and to see other issues we're tracking.

[simon-abbott]

I'm seeing the opposite issue. The PR has a requested change review, but the border and side icon are green (classic style border is orange).

[willsmythe]

@simon-abbott - thanks for reporting this.

Can you send a screen shot?

[simon-abbott]

[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).

[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.

[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?

[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]

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.

[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.

[jamison-lahman-ai]

It would be nice if there was an option to always show the required checks status. The failing optional checks are nice, but the checks I most care about are the required ones, passing or failing.

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback.

If there was an option to Hide optional checks would you expect the remaining checks (i.e. all the required ones) to still be grouped by status?

[larowlan]

Got a couple of unstyled buttons today, both the 'delete branch' and 'restore branch' versions

[probonopd]

On probonopd/MiniDexed#744

the "web editor" hyperlink and the "Resolve conflicts" button both link to https://github.com/probonopd/MiniDexed/pull/744/conflicts which is 404

[rob-fusco]

Liking it a ton visually, just wish the auto merge button worked so I wouldn't have to switch back and forth.

[Lukeghenco]

Thanks for raising this @rob-fusco we have a fix for this that should ship in the next few hours.

[Enukio]

Nice