Managing a branch protection rule

About branch protection rules

You can create a branch protection rule in a repository for a specific branch, all branches, or any branch that matches a name pattern you specify with fnmatch syntax. For example, to protect any branches containing the word release, you can create a branch rule for *release*.

You can create a rule for all current and future branches in your repository with the wildcard syntax *. Because GitHub uses the File::FNM_PATHNAME flag for the File.fnmatch syntax, the * wildcard does not match directory separators (/). For example, qa/* will match all branches beginning with qa/ and containing a single slash, but will not match qa/foo/bar. You can include any number of slashes after qa with qa/**/*, which would match, for example, qa/foo/bar/foobar/hello-world. You can also extend the qa string with qa**/**/* to make the rule more inclusive.

For more information about syntax options, see the fnmatch documentation.

If a repository has multiple protected branch rules that affect the same branches, the rules that include a specific branch name have the highest priority. If there is more than one protected branch rule that references the same specific branch name, then the branch rule created first will have higher priority.

Protected branch rules that mention a special character, such as *, ?, or ], are applied in the order they were created, so older rules with these characters have a higher priority.

To create an exception to an existing branch rule, you can create a new branch protection rule that is higher priority, such as a branch rule for a specific branch name.

For more information about each of the available branch protection settings, see "About protected branches."

Creating a branch protection rule

When you create a branch rule, the branch you specify doesn't have to exist yet in the repository.

1. On GitHub, navigate to the main page of the repository.

2. Under your repository name, click Settings. If you cannot see the "Settings" tab, select the dropdown menu, then click Settings.

   

3. In the "Code and automation" section of the sidebar, click Branches.

4. Next to "Branch protection rules", click Add rule.

5. Under "Branch name pattern", type the branch name or pattern you want to protect.

6. Optionally, enable required pull requests.

   Note

   If you select Dismiss stale pull request approvals when new commits are pushed and/or Require approval of the most recent reviewable push, manually creating the merge commit for a pull request and pushing it directly to a protected branch will fail, unless the contents of the merge exactly match the merge generated by GitHub for the pull request.

   In addition, with these settings, approving reviews will be dismissed as stale if the merge base introduces new changes after the review was submitted. The merge base is the commit that is the last common ancestor between the topic branch and the base branch. If the merge base changes, the pull request cannot be merged until someone approves the work again.

   • Under "Protect matching branches", select Require a pull request before merging.

   • Optionally, to require approvals before a pull request can be merged, select Require approvals.

     Select the Required number of approvals before merging dropdown menu, then click the number of approving reviews you would like to require on the branch.

   • Optionally, to dismiss a pull request approval review when a code-modifying commit is pushed to the branch, select Dismiss stale pull request approvals when new commits are pushed.

   • Optionally, to require review from a code owner when the pull request affects code that has a designated owner, select Require review from Code Owners. Note that if code has multiple owners, an approval from any of the code owners will be sufficient to meet this requirement. For more information, see "About code owners."

   • Optionally, to allow specific actors to push code to the branch without creating pull requests when they're required, select Allow specified actors to bypass required pull requests. Then, search for and select the actors who should be allowed to skip creating a pull request.

   • Optionally, if the repository is part of an organization, select Restrict who can dismiss pull request reviews. Then, in the search field, search for and select the actors who are allowed to dismiss pull request reviews. For more information, see "Dismissing a pull request review."

   • Optionally, to require someone other than the last person to push to a branch to approve a pull request prior to merging, select Require approval of the most recent reviewable push. For more information, see "About protected branches."

7. Optionally, enable required status checks. For more information, see "About status checks."

   • Select Require status checks to pass before merging.
   • Optionally, to ensure that pull requests are tested with the latest code on the protected branch, select Require branches to be up to date before merging.
   • In the search field, search for status checks, selecting the checks you want to require.

8. Optionally, select Require conversation resolution before merging.

9. Optionally, select Require signed commits.

10. Optionally, select Require linear history.

11. Optionally, to merge pull requests using a merge queue, select Require merge queue. For more information about merge queues, see "Managing a merge queue."

12. Optionally, to choose which environments the changes must be successfully deployed to before merging, select Require deployments to succeed before merging, then select the environments.

13. Optionally, make the branch read-only.

    • Select Lock branch.
    • Optionally, to allow fork syncing, select Allow fork syncing.

14. Optionally, select Do not allow bypassing the above settings.

15. Optionally, in public repositories owned by a GitHub Free organization and in all repositories owned by an organization using GitHub Team or GitHub Enterprise Cloud, enable branch restrictions.

    • Select Restrict who can push to matching branches.
    • Optionally, to also restrict the creation of matching branches, select Restrict pushes that create matching branches.
    • In the search field, search for and select the people, teams, or apps who will have permission to push to the protected branch or create a matching branch.

16. Optionally, under "Rules applied to everyone including administrators", select Allow force pushes.

    Then, choose who can force push to the branch.

    • Select Everyone to allow everyone with at least write permissions to the repository to force push to the branch, including those with admin permissions.
    • Select Specify who can force push to allow only specific actors to force push to the branch. Then, search for and select those actors.

    For more information about force pushes, see "About protected branches."

17. Optionally, select Allow deletions.

18. Click Create.

Editing a branch protection rule

1. On GitHub, navigate to the main page of the repository.

2. Under your repository name, click Settings. If you cannot see the "Settings" tab, select the dropdown menu, then click Settings.

   

3. In the "Code and automation" section of the sidebar, click Branches.

4. To the right of the branch protection rule you want to edit, click Edit.

5. Make your desired changes to the branch protection rule.

6. Click Save changes.

Deleting a branch protection rule

1. On GitHub, navigate to the main page of the repository.

2. Under your repository name, click Settings. If you cannot see the "Settings" tab, select the dropdown menu, then click Settings.

   

3. In the "Code and automation" section of the sidebar, click Branches.

4. To the right of the branch protection rule you want to delete, click Delete.