Quick access to merge status anywhere in pull requests [public preview]

[ebndev]

We are rolling out the pull request merge status at the top of every pull request page! Check merge readiness from anywhere in the pull request experience, including the new "Files changed" page. Click to open the details so you can quickly identify blockers, missing approvals, and get your pull request ready to merge.

If you're still using the classic "Files changed" page, you'll need to opt into the new experience to view the merge status from this page. Learn more by checking out our changelog about the new experience.

Merge.status.button.mp4

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Join the discussion and leave feedback in the comments below!

[opti]

Did it intend to remove "Update with rebase" option from PR show page?

[broksonic21]

We’ve seen the update branch via rebase option disappear since this was released. See related thread on this: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/188567

Can this be addressed? Thanks!

[ebndev]

Hi @opti and @broksonic21, we appreciate you reaching out to report this issue! 

The GitHub team is aware of this and is working on a solution. We'll provide details when they're available in this discussion.

Please subscribe to that post to receive real-time notifications on updates. If you have further questions or additional details about your experience, please comment directly there as well.

[mpiorowski]

Love it! Dont need to scroll down everytime somethings change / breaks

[wagoodman]

This is great --one nit pick: I have a lot of vertical realestate but there is a small window which checks show up in, so I need to scroll to see all of them. I realize you're probably re-using the same component UI-wise, however, it would be much better if this component would eliminate the need to scroll so much in a small nested i-frame-like-thing to see all checks.

[vanessa-kalu]

Thanks for sharing this! We'll add this to our roadmap

[asherone0]

Did this change remove the Edit button that allows changing the base branch for a pull request?

[vanessa-kalu]

@asherone0 we replaced the edit button with a pencil icon (next to the PR number). When you select the pencil icon, you can also edit the base branch

[asherone0]

Found it, thanks

[Euan-McVie]

@vanessa-kalu - Maybe the tooltip on hover should be updated to state that it edits both title and target branch as its not obvious due to its placement and current tooltip.

[josemfche]

Useful 👍🏽

[Zalathar]

This change is visually awful.

For the repositories I interact with, it just means that there is now a giant distracting red X at the top of every single PR, which conveys no useful information and is not actionable.

Please bear in mind that some repositories use an alternative mechanism to approve merges, and this change hurts anyone involved with those repositories.

[Zalathar]

Unfortunately this is not the first design change to shove a gigantic unhelpful red element in the user's face. We had similar problems with the overhaul of the merge status box at the bottom of the page.

[Zalathar]

Also the CSS for this new button is a total mess, making it impractical to perform any kind of client-side accessibility adjustment.

[Zalathar]

Having this slowly-loading item animate in the corner of the page also makes the PR page unusable for several seconds.

That causes every PR page load to be substantially slower in practice, which is very frustrating.

[gps035]

If there's room on the screen, I think the status of more checks should be displayed. It seems odd to require scrolling the in list of checks when there's a lot of whitespace below the merge button

[Camaromelt]

Nice change.

[fishmonger45]

Minor copy: When a PR is missing a review the language is forwardly geared to "Awaiting approval". It should perhaps be something neutral like "Awaiting review"?

[trongtai37]

Combining this view with the Overview info of the PR would be better

[rneatherway]

I like this change so far, thank you for working on this. One suggestion: as a reviewer I would like to be able to submit my review from this widget too. It feels natural that as it says Awaiting approval that I should be able to do this here.

[PranjalManhgaye]

it's really nice

[Wirone]

This change is nice, BUT would be much more helpful if the button was visible all the time when scrolling (within the banner containing PR's status, title etc). Right now you can jump into checks when you're either top of the page (button triggering side panel) or bottom (widget). When you're in the middle, you just have to jump top/bottom anyway, and lose the current context you're in.

PS. it works like this in diff tab, but not in conversation tab.

[gsmcdonald]

Being able to access the merge controls without scrolling to the bottom is great. However, the button saying "Ready to merge" is very unclear. I could see that button merging on click. I could see it toggling a ready/published vs. draft state. I wasn't necessarily surprised when it opened the sidebar. It just wasn't clear before I clicked it what the button would do when I clicked it.

[reactive-firewall]

🙅 I also feel the "Ready to Merge" wording is unintuitive, namely, on what is essentially a side-bar disclosure button (for desktop web UI).

Even with the other states like "Changes Requested" the button/status is an odd coupling;

Especially when considering the expanded/collapsed state of the changes requested details in the side panel (again desktop web UI) is disjoint and can still require additional user action to go-to the relevant parts of the review (e.g., adds cognitive cost without QoL benefit).

🤔 Perhaps this should be a subdued hyperlink (with text like "see details") below a status badge?

e.g.:

(and to whom it may concern: Feel-Free to use the above idea, (e.g., I, the author release the idea as an UNLICENSE contribution))

🙇 Hope this helps.

[robertkirkman]

Yes. For what it's worth, my first impression was that I was afraid to click the button to find out what it did, because I didn't want to accidentally one-click-merge the PR in case that's what it did.

I recommend changing the button to "View status" for everyone, like it does when viewing PRs that my account doesn't have permission to merge.

[chetangudisagar]

+1.
@ebndev Showing the current status + a "View" button next to it to get more information about the status would be good. It's confusing that the status is now clickable, and we don't know what will happen when we click it.

[NiklasRosenkilde]

I like it, but the option to easily change base branch seems to be gone now? Previously, you could quickly rebase a PR by selecting a branch from a dropdown. We use this regularly. Can that feature continue to exist?

[SCLD-GHettinger]

I had this problem too, had to click 'switch to classic experience' under the preview button

[reactive-firewall]

I like it, but the option to easily change base branch seems to be gone now? Previously, you could quickly rebase a PR by selecting a branch from a dropdown. We use this regularly. Can that feature continue to exist?

Looks like it was moved to only show when the user has clicked the edit (pencil?) icon (like when changing the title of a PR)

[massfords]

I don't like how the PR shows with a red X in the listing view and the detail view when the only problem is that it is awaiting an approval to merge.

The red X's used to indicate that there was a failed check like a unit test or deployment and were a call to action. I'd rather have something other than the red X to indicate it's awaiting approval

[rodovich]

Our team frequently includes questions, non-blocking feedback, or requests for small changes that wouldn't warrant a re-review (e.g. "Please add a comment here explaining…") with PR approvals. Since this sidebar doesn't include or reference any review comments, it seems like this new button could would make it much easier to merge a PR without noticing such comments.

[chadxz]

Even though this pull request has been approved, it's still showing "awaiting approval" instead of something more accurate here, like "unresolved comments".

[reactive-firewall]

🤔 or at-least is should be consistent with the "merging is blocked"

[willsmythe]

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I would expect this to show a different message. I'll open a bug.

[SCLD-GHettinger]

The Edit button that is usually there isn't there anymore. I had to "switch to classic experience" I need that edit button to rebase the PR to a different base branch.

[chetangudisagar]

@SCLD-GHettinger Looks like it has been moved next to the PR number.

[SCLD-GHettinger]

That only edits the title of the PR, it doesn't give you the drop down to change the base branch

[maximilianruesch]

Like the change, small nit: Whenever you enter a PR page, the GitHub icon in the tab receives a status indicator according to the merge status (which makes it really useful to keep GitHub tabs open when waiting for some PRs). When opening and closing the sidebar via the new button, this indicator in the tab vanishes and only reappears when reloading the page. Not super vital, but a bit annoying nonetheless.