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GitHub Rulesets

  • Rulesets are the modern way to enforce protections on branches across a repository (or organization).
  • Use a branch ruleset to standardize requirements like PR reviews, status checks, commit signing, and more.

Understanding Ruleset / Branch Protection

Branch protection rules help maintain code quality by:

  • Preventing direct pushes to important branches like main or develop
  • Requiring pull request reviews before merging code
  • Enforcing status checks from CI/CD pipelines
  • Restricting who can push to protected branches
  • Maintaining a clean commit history with merge strategies
  • Ensuring code review processes by forcing pull request reviews
  • Enabling automated testing to catch issues early
  • Maintaining a clean commit history with merge strategies
  • Enforcing coding standards through automated checks
  • Preventing accidental deletions of important branches

1. Create Ruleset

  1. Open the repository on GitHub and go to Settings
  2. In the sidebar, select Rules → Rulesets
  3. Click New ruleset and choose New Branch Ruleset as the target
  4. Give the ruleset a meaningful name (for example, Branch Protections - main)
  5. Set Enforcement status → Active / Disabled
  6. Set Target branches → Add target (which branches the rules apply to):
  7. Configure Bypass list (optional):
    • Add specific users/teams that may bypass, and (if required)

Danger

Bypass rules should be used sparingly and only for trusted users or teams. Atera Does have bypass rules

Rules

2. Approvals

  • Set the Require a pull request before merging → Required Approvals

3. Merge Methods

  • Set the Allowed merge methods

    Squash

    • Recommended for most teams
    • Combines all commits into a single commit
    • Keeps main branch history clean
    • Easy to revert changes
    • Provides a clear commit history
    • Allows for better collaboration and code review
    • Simplifies the process of reverting changes

    Rebase

    • Replays commits without creating merge commits
    • Creates linear history
    • Good for small, clean changes
    • Allows for easier bisecting of changes
    • Supports interactive rebasing
    • Requires careful management of commit history
    • Not recommended for large feature branches

    Merge committing

    • Creates merge commits that preserve branch history
    • Good for feature branch workflows
    • Allows for more complex merge scenarios
    • Requires careful management of merge conflicts
    • Not recommended for small changes

    Merge Strategy Recommendations

    Workflow Type Recommended Strategy Benefits
    Feature branches Squash merge Clean main branch history
    Hotfixes Rebase merge Fast-forward integration
    Release branches Merge commit Preserve branch context
    Small changes Squash merge Reduce commit noise

4. Status Checks

  • Set the Require status checks to pass → Require status checks to pass before merging
  • Add the required checks

Require status checks to pass before merging

  • This ensures that all required checks pass before merging a pull request.
  • It helps maintain code quality and prevents broken code from being merged.
  • You can select specific checks like:
    • ci/build
    • ci/test
    • security/code-scanning
    • quality/lint
    • Atera/specific_task

5. Branch Restrictions

  • Those are several restrictions you can apply to branches
  • Review the rules screen and you can see all the different configured restrictions

   Task: Create rules for Development Branch

    Pattern: develop or dev
    Required reviewers: 1
    Status checks: CI tests only
    Allow force pushes: No

   Task: Create rules for Release Branches

    Pattern: release/*
    Required reviewers: 2
    Status checks: Full test suite
    Restrict pushes: Release managers only

   Task: Create rules for Feature Branches

    Pattern: feature/*
    Required reviewers: 1
    Status checks: Basic CI
    Allow force pushes: Yes (for development)

6. Copilot Code Reviews

  • Set the Require a pull request before merging → Automatically request Copilot code review