Update branch with rebase repository setting

[avaly]

The new update branch feature is great!

But for teams which are only using the rebase functionality, it's not optimal to always have to pick the rebase option from a drop down menu.

It would be ideal if there were a repository level setting to configure which option is the default for that button.

[michaelbeaumont]

It'd be great for it to even just remember the last used option like the "Merge PR" option does.

[filipesperandio]

💯 even better then having a default.

[burz]

The issue I am facing is that even when merge commits are disabled in the repository settings, the update button still defaults to merge commits.

Please change the "update branch" button to either follow the same rules as the overall PR options, or allow it to be configured separately to disallow certain options.

(The "update branch" is a great feature, btw!)

[rmacklin]

I would vote for separate configuration as this would allow for the button to be used even when the project desires "semi-linear" history (where merge commits are allowed to be created when merging a fully-rebased branch into the mainline).

[rmacklin]

This was also requested in a comment on another feature request: #3245 (comment) and that comment currently has more upvotes than this post (so the upvotes here are under-represented)

[ManuelRauber]

That would be an awesome feature, if we choose the strategy to update the branch, just like we do with PR merging.

[rathpc]

Hey @scotttesler, any chance we can get some traction on this please? 🙏

[dimisjim]

doubtful, with all the layoffs circling around.

[marcusramberg]

@krisnova ^^ This is the issue I was talking about on your Twitch stream. 😸

[ferologics]

ditto

[valentin-krasontovitsch]

there's no way for a user (non github employee) to contribute to the github codebase and make this happen, is there?

[deefactorial]

Is there any update from the GitHub team regarding this feature request?

[dcornewell]

We were just discussing how update with rebase is preferred but most of my dev team just clicks the button. I'd like it at least to be configurable to be the first option to save a click.

[GANTR0N]

This would be a major help for how our testing system is integrated, this is a small change that would be a big QoL help.

[williamglasse]

Our team would really benefit from this too! Have had a couple of team members accidentally merge, and then have had to undo that change. Would really like to be able to select a default other than "merge"

[mbirchdk]

Would love this feature! Sucks when teammembers accidentally presses the merge button

Personally I want merge-commits from feature-branches on to the main-branch, but I dont want to allow merge-commits for updating other branches, this should be done using rebase. I tried enforcing it with the branch-protection rule "require linear history" on all other branches than main. But unfortunately it uses the entire commit-history, and not just the commits on the specific branch

[manemarron]

Our team would love this feature as well. We would like the feature branches to be updated using rebase to avoid having so many merge-commits. Our master, staging, and develop branches would be updated using merges obviousy, but for feature branches or fix branches, this feature would help us have a cleaner commit history in a simpler way.

[minherz]

I guess the only way is to contribute this feature because Github team is clearly ignorant about it.

[jajik]

How? GitHub is not an open source project.

[DomasM]

Yeah there is no way to do that. Possible workaround would be to use frontend hacking e.g. Tampermonkey to edit Github UI, but of course that's quite nasty

[sandstrom]

Yes, this is annoying, causes a lot of frustration when people click this by accident.

Our workflow is to require 'merge commits' when merging a PR, but we only use 'rebase' when updating a branch. In other words, no merges from master into a feature branch.

[dedalus-adb]

This feature is so much needed, just like the comment in https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/3245#discussioncomment-2105732 said. Our team works exactly lilke this, always asking for rebases instead of merges for updating branches, and it would be so easy to just be able of configure the default behaviour of the button, just like we can configure the behaviour of the "Merge/Squash and Merge/Rebase" button...

I hope this can be implemented in the near future!

[robertIsaac]

it would be much helpful if the admins has the choice to

1. disable either of the buttons depending on the repo needs
2. choose which one is the default if both are enabled

[uaqben]

Same. Our team wish this were already available. Hard to fathom why it isn't...

[spargo-nv]

I, too, would like the option to select Rebase as the default option for updating a branch.
I had a team member request it to be the default option earlier today, which is how I found this thread, and several others asking for the same functionality.

[64BitAsura]

@github disable update branch via merge commit when allow merge commit is disabled or something. I want update branch via rebase only if setting enabled allow merge via rebase only +1

[nocarroll-v8m]

+100, this feature would also greatly help our team as we are trying to move away from merge commits in our strategy.

[chirag-ema]

Please please add this feature. Seeing merge commits in our PRs disturbs a lot of future github actions (like creating releases and generating change logs)

[tompaz3]

It would be nice to be able disable "Update with rebase" completely as well.
We use commits signature verification and this feature is useless in our case, because when it does the rebase and force push, it creates new, unsigned commits which will fail the signature verification (it cannot sign the commits as it does not have the access to the private key, obviously).

Poeple still use the "Update with rebase" feature every once in a while and get confused why their PR checks fail and they have to do the interactive rebase locally to sign all the commits once again.