ryanhiebert/probot-chain

Chain GitHub Pull Requests

Note: You probably don't need this

UPDATE: I have turned off the server. If you actually do need this, please let me know by opening an issue. I'm going to archive this repository in a couple of weeks.

GitHub will automatically change the base of pull requests that currently have their head set to the branch being deleted if the deleting is done automatically on merge or via the button on the pull request.

So if you merge a pull request, and then you click the "Delete branch" button:

Then you'll see this on all the dependent pull requests:

And this also works if you have GitHub delete branches automatically on merge:

So you probably don't need this. If you think you actually do need this, open up an issue and tell me. I'll probably delete this app in a while if you don't.

One particular case that might catch you up is that if you delete the branch via the git cli, it will NOT change the base branch of dependent pull requests, it will just close the issues. I expect that for most cases, though, having it delete head branches automatically, potentially combined with branch protection rules, will be the best way to deal with those cases.

probot-chain

a GitHub App built with probot that makes it easy to manage chained pull requests.

Usage

Chain helps manage the drudgery of dealing with chained pull requests. When you open a pull request that is based on another pull request, simply make sure that the base branch is the head branch of the pull request that you're wanting to extend.

When the initial pull request is closed or merged, the follow-up pull request will automatically have it's base be changed to follow the base of the original pull request, so that your follow-up pull request is ready to merge.

Setup

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run the bot
npm start

See docs/deploy.md if you would like to run your own instance of this app.

probot-chain's Issues

Adding commit to dependency PR

Hi,

Thanks for you package. I have a question:

Say I have a PR2 that is based on a PR1. When reviewing PR1 someone adds a commit to it, and then merges it. Would this extension still work in this case?

Thanks!

Ignore some branches

There are cases where there are well-known branches that pull requests to should not cause a chain reaction for. For example, consider the case where a repository is using a strategy with multiple long-lived master and stable branches.

Feature development would happen against the master branch, but periodically the master branch would be merged into the stable branch in order to cut a stable release. When a pull request is opened from master to stable, all of the other pull requests against master would be updated to be based on stable, which would not be what is intended.

One possibility is to make it so that that pull requests against the "main" branch of the repository are never rebased, even if the main branch is merged to another branch. Depending on what is required from the implementation, this may be a reasonable default.

Autodelete head branches

We have "Automatically delete head branches" set which deletes the branch when the PR is merged. But it can delete the branch only when there is no dependent PR. When the chain bot updates the base branch of the dependent PR, the original branch is no longer needed. Could chain bot delete this branch for us?