Improved pull request merge experience (public preview) feedback

[willsmythe]

Important

• This new experience is rolling out gradually and is not available to everyone yet.
• When it's available to you, a link will appear below the current merge experience on the PR page.
• See Known issues 👇 for latest on known bugs and feature parity gaps.

Thanks ❤️ and happy previewing!

About the new experience

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

Try it out

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).

Missing features

Features currently missing, but are coming:

• Approving GitHub Actions workflows
• Add your review action in the Reviewers section (workaround: navigate to the Files Changed tab and click Review changes)

Bugs

1. Overall merge status styling is sometimes too harsh or not consistent with the current experience
2. Clicking the Resolve conflicts button results in a 404/Not Found in certain cases
3. Documentation URLs appear as text and are not clickable
4. Bypass checkbox sometimes not visible / user blocked from merging with The base branch does not accept merge commits.

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)
• FIXED 2024-11-22: The browser tab icon (favicon) does not currently reflect the pull request's merge status
• FIXED 2024-11-25: A page refresh is sometimes required to show latest status and correct actions/buttons (like after all checks have completed)
• FIXED 2024-11-25: Clicking Delete branch / Restore branch fails with a Couldn't update branch message (likely occurs only in PRs from forks)
• SUPPORTED: Reviews can be dismissed and re-requested
• SUPPORTED: Command line instructions are missing
• FIXEX: Restore branch button is easily confused for Delete branch (we moved the Restore branch button out of the new merge experience so the only button that will appear here is Delete branch)
• FIXED: Use natural/logical ordering for status checks to help with numeric matrix build ordering
• FIXED: In certain cases, an incorrect commit author email address will be shown when confirming merge or a different email address will be used from what's displayed
• FIXED: Misalignment/wonkiness with check status icon (Safari-only)
• FIXED: Squash and auto-mergebutton (to enable auto-merge) is too easily confused forSquash and merge` (to directly merge) because of similar text and styling *FIX IN PROGRESS
• SUPPORTED: Selecting a different commit author email when merging
• FIXED: Showing status check durations (showing how long a check has been running / took to run)

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?

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

[wbechard-corum]

When I click Delete Branch after a merge, and the UI suddenly puts a Revert button exactly where the Delete Branch button was located... that's a problem.

Please do NOT add elements to move buttons on the page, it's incredibly frustrating and results in me waiting rather than getting on with the next task.

[dub-lin]

lost but found

[jackdewinter]

love it!!!

[OkoroaforKelechiDivine]

Urrgss this doesn't look good at all

[mivljack]

It seems the "discussion resolution" section was missed. Could we address that as well?

Also, feel free to check out my website (https://cavamenudallas.com/), for more details about our offerings

[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

[jessicaDura]

again non diversitalizing materials the only truely honest traite available to be earned.

[cipacera]

Do you find it helpful to record and report bugs like this for quicker resolution?

[jagerman777hx]

What specific scenarios cause the checks to disappear, and how does refreshing the browser resolve this issue?

[dub-lin]

just hoping for the best cus my time has been wasted looking for a way out of everything i put myself into just to find a better living

[niyahj]

What might cause the checks to disappear after processing?

[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?

[Tilka]

The second command of Step 1 points to the wrong repository. It should point to the repo of the branch being merged, not the repo of the branch it's being merged into. The instructions of the "classic merge experience" are correct.

[mno-ly]

Do you think bringing back the 'view command line instructions' feature would be helpful for the process?

[jimklimov]

@mno-ly : surprisingly, yes. I see a fair share of samaritan contributors who are helping improve FOSS projects, even if they are young and making first steps with the language or git tooling, so helping them help us is good.

A perhaps more "troublesome" category is contributors who are very much not young, and while they can share experience about the project or subject matter generally, and are comfortable about programming or documentation tools, learning new-fangled tools like git (and remembering it until the next time) is a practical problem, so cheat-sheets do help. May I live to their age and remain so eager and able to help!

[bearycool11]

line 1 ~~~~~~~~~~~^~~~

that was a good comment.

[kaunuto]

When will the 'view command line instructions' feature be restored, and will it address the issue of incorrect repository references in the CLI commands?

[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.

[DingGGu]

I think this feedback is deployed now.

[richardhj]

@willsmythe It shows "...has been merged and deleted" (see above) to me but my branch is protected (and if it would have been deleted in fact, it would be a disaster because of deployment).

[jonathan-bird]

@richardhj +1 here too

[kanahamppari]

Has the feedback about this design already been implemented, and what changes were made to address the issue?

[freakyblack]

Has there been any consideration to redesign or clarify the 'PR successfully merged and closed' message to avoid confusion with the auto-delete branch feature?

[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.

[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!

[Ivnfrolov13]

yes

[jenniyuslauw]

Are there plans to implement a more robust solution to ensure consistent rendering of UI elements across all browsers?

[andrybedo]

Are there other similar visual inconsistencies you've noticed in the GitHub interface?

[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 :)

[ShalokShalom]

Sorry, only saw this now. https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/143787#discussioncomment-11460074

[daveisfera]

Saw this as well and was confused about what was broken with my PR, but then realized that it was fine and the new UI just shows this as red for some reason

[evans-jahja-paypay]

A red merge button is easily confused with "Closed PR", so now it has dual meaning: closed and blocked. I think if we want to use another color, it should be something else that is unused.

[laeubi]

Saw this as well and was confused about what was broken with my PR, but then realized that it was fine and the new UI just shows this as red for some reason

Maybe an orange color would be better like with traffic lights RED > ORANGE > GREEN I'm also a bit confused often if something has failed (e.g. a blocking review) or if just something is missing right now.

[Tamschi]

The red outline and icon are definitely still quite confusing, even if the only issue is the lack of permission.
It actually bugs me so much that I'll revert to the old one here. The classic version (green in this case) is definitely less stressful 😅

[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.

[aa131520]

Are there any additional planned updates or improvements for the 'Restore branch' and 'Delete branch' buttons beyond what has already been fixed?

[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

[jfredt]

What steps were taken by the development team to address the problem, and how long did it take to deploy a fix?

[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.

[jcviljoen]

Hey Will 👋. I ran into a simpler case where, if you merge the base branch and the checks pass, the "enable auto merge" button stays visible until you refresh. Seemed like an extension to this feedback 🙌.

Great update btw! 🚀

[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.

[jsoref]

The "Merge is not an allowed merge method in this repository." part of argoproj/argo-cd#21064:

Merging is blocked
Merge is not an allowed merge method in this repository.
1 review requesting changes by reviewers with write access.

definitely doesn't make sense.

[Levi-Lesches]

@willsmythe If the intent here is that, say, only squash is allowed, then the Merge pull request button should simply be changed to Squash and Merge instead, like the old merge button would

[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).

[nicoburns]

The checks are in a scroll view anyway, so I don't think there's any advantage to having the successful checks collapsed? If you don't want to see them then don't scroll down to them...

[aiven-amartin]

I would at least want all the required checks to appear, as clicking into those is my usual pattern. On a merged PR it is still only one click on the details to show all of the checks, no additional grouping there, and same when there are no failures/pending on an open PR. It's only once there are failures that it now hides the rest, and I really don't find that helpful. I think qmonnet covered the best compromise, and the big callout being either remove max-height or default collapse, doing both is kind of claustrophobia inducing.

[yorik]

Successful checks often includes diff, which important to check before approving, so keeping them easy accessible is very important.

[lessthnthree]

Yeah, when a PR is fine, checks passed, just waiting review, it immediately threw me off to see it now in red. Red I usually associate with some action required on my part to resolve.

[NathanaelGandhi]

My preference would be while checks are still running/pending/failed to either expand the checks group or have an account setting to automatically expand those groups by default. Passing checks defaulting to collapsed seems like a sensible choice as I'm not waiting on them and they would not require intervention. Therefore not seeing a list of checks screams things completed and are fine.

[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 🙌

[ditman]

I came to say the same, I routinely work on a repo that has 70+ checks, and collapsing the results, and moving the failing to the top makes this much nicer :)

[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.

[willsmythe]

@genintho - can you give this another try? We rolled out a fix today to order status checks more logically.

[genintho]

@willsmythe it looks fixed! Thank you!

[argorain]

Removing enqued pull-request from queue fails with some random error and pull-request remains in queue. I had to switch back to old dialog to remove it.

[felixSchober]

Very minor but there appears to be an overflow on Safari. 100% scaling and a window size of 1280x2942

[zkamvar]

I like the more visible status checks, but I'm finding that the PR page becomes very slow to load with more than two reviewers adding dozens of review comments. For example, this PR takes several seconds to load: reichlab/decisions#10

[sebhmg]

I love the new summary with the list of checks, grouped by status: it helps to focus on problems for repos with many checks.
I do miss the ability to quickly list unresolved conversations that are blocking the PR merge (according to the repo rules).

[fredden]

Please can we differentiate between failed and cancelled checks? At the moment, I need to scroll down to find the failures; I am presented with a long list of cancelled checks and it takes extra time / effort to find out what's wrong.

[ruben-iteng]

1. It is unclear if the auto-merge (and squash) feature is enabled what the commit message will be, especially if new commits are added.
2. Additionally it is not editable after enabling the feature

[hohwille]

BTW: This is cool stuff that you are doing. However, I have the impression that you are tending for perfection rather than simplicity (KISS) and therefore robustness. Having this dynamic groupings updated on the fly seems very complex. Maybe your JS/TS developers enjoy complex coding or some managers love to torture such developers ;)

[bearycool11]

You’re totally correct I overdo it way too much lol, and simplicity is the best policy. FYI this has been a great way to teach how to mentor and build apps like our sdk at https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1jMKgBLXrZPxL So thank you for letting me run with this a little lol Get Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef>

…

________________________________ From: Jörg Hohwiller ***@***.***> Sent: Friday, January 10, 2025 9:19:02 PM To: community/community ***@***.***> Cc: Josef Edwards ***@***.***>; Mention ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [community/community] Improved pull request merge experience (public preview) feedback (Discussion #143787) [External email - use caution] BTW: This is cool stuff that you are doing. However, I have the impression that you are tending for perfection rather than simplicity (KISS) and therefore robustness. Having this dynamic groupings updated on the fly seems very complex. Maybe your JS/TS developers enjoy complex coding or some managers love to torture such developers ;) — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#143787 (comment)>, or unsubscribe<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BMYEGJKJRCG4KAUOLJIWRVL2KB5RNAVCNFSM6AAAAABRJM6BY2VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTCOBQGQYDONY>. You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[bearycool11]

Maybe I’m just a developer that likes the CODE whipping from his coding rabbit lol! Get Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef>

…

________________________________ From: Jörg Hohwiller ***@***.***> Sent: Friday, January 10, 2025 9:19:02 PM To: community/community ***@***.***> Cc: Josef Edwards ***@***.***>; Mention ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [community/community] Improved pull request merge experience (public preview) feedback (Discussion #143787) [External email - use caution] BTW: This is cool stuff that you are doing. However, I have the impression that you are tending for perfection rather than simplicity (KISS) and therefore robustness. Having this dynamic groupings updated on the fly seems very complex. Maybe your JS/TS developers enjoy complex coding or some managers love to torture such developers ;) — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#143787 (comment)>, or unsubscribe<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BMYEGJKJRCG4KAUOLJIWRVL2KB5RNAVCNFSM6AAAAABRJM6BY2VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTCOBQGQYDONY>. You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[BenElferink]

Text on bottom is overlapping the button, this happened recently, it was OK a couple days ago

[ChiefArug]

I've seen in the known issues and comments that the colours are being worked on, and just wanted to give my 5 cents on how those should work from the perspective of someone submitting PRs to someone elses repository. I definitely do not like the current red for 'you dont have merge permissions'.

• Red indicates the PR is being blocked by an action that you can take (ie merge conflicts, tests failing)
• Orange indicates the PR could be blocked by an action you can take, but we don't know yet (i.e pending reviews or pending actions checks)
• Green indicates you have passed everything GitHub can throw at you (required approval reviews are in, actions tests pass ect)

Grey could also see some use, maybe as a replacement for orange or as something else (draft prs? other action categories I can't think of rn?)

[BraveCaperCat2]

Gray could be used for when you can't merge in a PR (possibly because you have no write access to the repo) during an otherwise RED or ORANGE error.

[tolry]

Thanks for the changes, lots of nice improvements! 👍

One issue I am having regarding to keyboard navigation: when I click on 'Sqash and Merge', I usually edit the final commit message and submit the form using CTRL+ENTER which does not seem to work for me (Google Chrome + Ubuntu 24.04).

[wendigo]

Approve and run button is missing from the new UI. Is it on purpose?

[AlanGreene]

See the known issues at the top or search existing messages. This is reported almost daily.

[BraveCaperCat2]

See the known issues at the top or search existing messages. This is reported almost daily.

The problem is that it isn't in bugs. It's in missing features, which is not bugs. The beta UI shouldn't have released (even into public beta) unless all features from the previous version of the UI are there.

[noonio]

Please don't ever recommend a UI feature like this that is missing essential functionality like "Approve and Run".

I see that it is a known issue; but you should never have suggested it in the first place until it was resolved! I'll not be trying any beta features again in a hurry; trust has been lost.

[scottrobertson]

I disagree. A lot of people have never used "Approve and Run". This public preview is nice for many, including me.

[scottrobertson]

Text overlapping when enabling auto merge