Skip to content

GitHub Action: Automerge

This GitHub Action workflow automates the merging of pull requests labeled with automerge. It supports scheduled runs and manual execution, ensuring streamlined integration of changes that meet predefined criteria.

automerge.yml

Workflow Details

Triggers (on)

  • schedule:
    • Automatically runs every hour on Sundays (UTC) to catch staggered PR-creating jobs (0 * * * 0).
    • Runs daily at 08:00 UTC Monday–Saturday (0 8 * * 1-6).
  • workflow_dispatch:
    • Allows manual execution of the workflow via the GitHub Actions interface.

Job Details

automerge

runs-on: ubuntu-latest

Steps:

  1. Automerge:
  2. Uses the pascalgn/automerge-action@v0.16.3 action to merge pull requests that meet specific criteria.
  3. Environment Variables:
    • GITHUB_TOKEN: A personal access token (PAT) stored in the repository's secrets for authentication.
    • MERGE_METHOD: Specifies the merge method. In this case, the squash method is used, which combines all commits into a single commit when merging.
    • MERGE_REQUIRED_APPROVALS: Defines the required number of approvals for merging. Here, it is set to "0", meaning no approvals are required.
    • MERGE_LABELS: Specifies the label (automerge) that triggers the automerge process.

In summary, this workflow simplifies the process of merging pull requests by automatically merging those labeled with automerge using the squash method. It can be executed daily or manually, ensuring flexibility and efficiency in the development process.

Required Repository Setting for Automated PR Workflows

For the automerge workflow (and other bot-created PRs like Dependabot, update_template_deps, update_template_workflows) to run their CI checks automatically without manual approval, you must configure the following setting in your generated project's repository:

  1. Go to Settings → Actions → General
  2. Under "Fork pull request workflows from outside collaborators", select:
  3. "Require approval for first-time contributors who are new to GitHub" (recommended), or
  4. "Read‑only" (if you trust all contributors)

Without this setting, PRs created by bots will show "X workflows awaiting approval" and their checks will remain blocked until a maintainer manually approves each run.

This setting only needs to be configured once per generated repository.