Improved pull request merge experience (public preview) feedback

[willsmythe]

Tip

• See Known issues below for latest on known bugs and feature parity gaps.

Important

• Starting January 30 the improved experience will be enabled by default for some users. You can still turn it off, but if you do, please tell us why below. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

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

How to turn it on (or off)

Click the Try the new merge experience link below the merge box on the pull request page to enable the improved experience:

To switch back to the classic experience, click the Switch back to the classic merge 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:

• 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. Bypass checkbox sometimes not visible / user blocked from merging with The base branch does not accept merge commits.

Recently fixed

Full list

• 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

[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

[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

[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?

[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?

[willsmythe]

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

[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.

[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.

[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

[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?

[isabellabreder]

+1 here, very confusing

[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

[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!

[jnfaerch]

'Checking for the ability to merge automatically...' often hangs in the unfinished state, and I have to reload the page before I can merge.

[cameronraysmith]

Could you discuss whether or not #4618 allow ... --ff merges for PRs [from the UI] would be considered in scope for this improved merge experience?

[janderssonse]

Hoping, current behaviour Would also be in interest of GitHub-security team to fix - I mean - wiping user signatures in an unexpected GitHub-only behavior and rewriting them with custom ones would be considerd a Security risk for any organisation

[Dinoraptor101]

I use auto-merge and the button is being overlapped with the text.

[roylau134]

The font color or button should be red to indicate that I am going to disable the merge. Currently, there are not enough visual cues.

[n3dst4]

The automatic colllapsing is not quite right for me. I end up being given an expanded list of the skipped tasks, and the successful ones are hidden.

The information I reallly want, at a glance, is, "Did my build job succeed?" Right now, with the automatic collapsing, that's hidden away behind a click, and sometimes a scroll-then-a-click if there are many skipped tasks:

[thomasvisma]

I personally like the new overview, i just find that the actions currently in progress are more interesting to me than the actions pending.
The skipped checks are even less important to me, so i would have those even lower.
So i would change those 2 around, having the following order:

• Actions in progress
• Pending actions
• Successful checks
• Skipped checks

Maybe it would be a nice idea to be able to change the sorting of these, because different pipelines have different needs :)

[dentarg]

I had to switch back from the new experience because it just added noise. It makes me think I have to remove the branch that was just merged.

Old: PR merged, branch removed

This is the old merge experience when the PR is merged and branch removed

Old? New? PR merged, branch not removed

If the branch is not removed it looks like this – something I can act on

New: PR merged, branch removed

The new experience looks the same but there is no action to take

[rempsyc]

The continuous integration workflows (Github Action) checks were not running. It said "Action required".

But then the interface gave no option to approve it:

That's because that's the new interface 🥴 Had to switch to the old one to see it :/

[johnkerl]

I love it!! :)

[stackia]

Layout broken on Safari

[hon2a]

FIXED 2024-11-25: A page refresh is sometimes required to show latest status and correct actions/buttons (like after all checks have completed)

I'm still experiencing this as of writing this comment. After switching to the "new merge experience", all of my PRs are still showing "Merging is blocked" and preventing merge until I refresh the page.

[hon2a]

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?

This puts the form lower on the page for me with the Confirm button flush with the bottom edge of the window in most cases. The change is unpleasant, as it makes my default path (straight to Confirm) longer/harder. I preferred the previous design. Alternatively, making the page scroll up might do the trick.

[potiuk]

In a number of cases where you need to "approve" workflows of new committer - the approve worklfow button is sometimes (not always) missing. I have not pinpointed when - but when I notice (like I see that no workflows have been runing) I switch to the old experince, approve the workflow and switch back. This is pretty annoying and can lead to merging PRs that did not run the workflows.

I had exactly this problem here: apache/airflow#46335

[SandPoot]

I dislike the box being red for a PR that is otherwise completely fine but i don't have access to the repository.

[ditman]

I love the new experience, but it'd be even better if I could filter checks by their name. I have 80+ checks, and I'd love to see only the tests that contain "wasm" in their name, for example here.