auto-merge doesn't work with rulesets

[ReenigneArcher]

Why are you starting this discussion?

Bug

What GitHub Actions topic or product is this about?

Workflow Deployment

Discussion Details

I recently migrated from classic branch protection rules to branch rulesets (on June 11 2025), and noticed that the auto-merge functionality does not work since I did this.

I migrated dozens of repositories and the behavior is exactly the same between all of them.

As you can see in the screenshot above, auto-merge is enabled and everything has passed it's checks but the merge never occurs. I have disable auto-merge, and then do the merge manually to get it merged.

Is this a known bug, and is anyone working on a correction?

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[prachit082]

Hi @ReenigneArcher,

You're absolutely right—what you're experiencing is a known limitation with the current implementation of branch rulesets in GitHub.

As of now, auto-merge is not yet fully compatible with the new branch rulesets, especially when certain conditions (like required status checks or required approvals) are applied through rulesets instead of the classic branch protection UI.

Auto-merge relies on specific signals from the branch protection settings to determine whether a pull request is eligible. Some of these signals are not yet surfaced correctly when using the new rulesets system.

GitHub has acknowledged that feature parity between classic protections and rulesets is still in progress.

There is currently no public ETA on full compatibility, but this issue has been reported by many users and is on GitHub’s radar.

You Can Try These Workarounds:

• Temporarily revert to classic branch protection rules if auto-merge is critical for your workflow.
• Use GitHub CLI or a custom GitHub Action to simulate auto-merge behavior conditionally, though this requires more maintenance.
• Regularly check the GitHub changelog or GitHub Discussions for updates regarding rulesets improvements.

If this is blocking critical workflows, I recommend reaching out via GitHub Support to escalate the issue and get notified when a fix is rolled out.

[ReenigneArcher]

Okay, thanks for the response.

Perhaps GitHub shouldn't be encouraging using the new rulesets if they are not actually ready to use?

i.e. promoting the ruleset option instead of the classic one

Since rulesets have been around for over 2 years (https://github.blog/changelog/2023-04-17-introducing-repository-rules-public-beta/) I figured any little bugs would have been ironed out by now.

[danielsballes]

Disabling rule set worked for you @ReenigneArcher?

I disabled mine but my PRs are not automatically merging.

[ReenigneArcher]

Disabling rule set worked for you @ReenigneArcher?

I disabled mine but my PRs are not automatically merging.

It worked when I use classic branch protection rules instead of rulesets

[AlexanderBartash]

💡 The Workaround

If you want to use RuleSets and auto-merge. Create an empty branch protection rule (the older alternative to the RuleSet), and the auto-merge will start working again, while the RuleSet is still fully functional.

[ReenigneArcher]

Mine looks very similar except I have "Require Code Scanning Results" checked. I will try with that disabled, as it's somewhat redundant since those are in the required status checks anyway.

[AlexanderBartash]

Here is also the collapsed part

[Yokoi-K]

@AlexanderBartash @ReenigneArcher

Hi, I tried your workaround, but it didn't work.
May I ask a question?

It's okay to have multiple definitions in the Target branches of Rulesets, right?
For example, if there are multiple branches specified like this,

and there's only a Branch Protection Rule linked to main,
will auto-merge work for main using the workaround?

[ReenigneArcher]

I could never get the workaround to work either. Just gave up and started going back to the legacy branch protection rules on the repos where I really need auto merge.

[AlexanderBartash]

@Yokoi-K Hi. I do not really know. It is unclear why that workaround even works sometimes. You can see my complete configuration on the screenshots I've shared. I recommend doing the same, checking if it works, then adjust one step at a time and check if anything changes.

[ReenigneArcher]

bump

[filip-be]

+1, workaround proposed by @AlexanderBartash is still the only way to get auto-merge working fine with rulesets

[mc-eddi]

Thank you @AlexanderBartash for the workaround!
In the beginning it seemed like it wouldn't work. We modified the existing classic "Branch protection rule" to be empty.
Only after deleting the existing empty classic "Branch protection rule" and creating a new empty classic "Branch protection rule" (after the Ruleset) the auto-merge worked again.

Btw. we opened a support ticket, but there is still no ETA for a fix:

"This has been escalated to our engineering team and they are aware of the issue and your ticket was added to the issue for which they are working on a fix.
 
Our engineering team has indicated they will not be able to fully dive in and implement any resolutions in the near-term."

[StamatisKourk]

I also experienced this issue in my setups. While auto-merge works generally for the repository, I get some PRs every day that won't merge, even after hours of being eligible and auto-merge being activated.

[vladimircascarade-spacenk]

Hello,

I am experiencing the same problem. We've defined some org based rulesets, and even though the individual repository Auto-merge checkboxes have been ticked, there's no automerging happening. This is affecting multiple projects.

Would be great if this can be prioritised.

[ReenigneArcher]

I heard microsoft has some fancy AI that can fix all this stuff...

[vs4vijay]

I am also facing this issue, how can I enable AutoMerge on PRs?

[ReenigneArcher]

The only reliable way is to use the legacy "branch protection rules" instead of "rulesets".

There are workarounds people have mentioned in this thread. I've tried them all but could never get them to work.

[AlexanderBartash]

Hi. The workaround works, but maybe not 100% reliably. E.g. I see it sometimes working, sometimes not, but I do not care enough to get to the bottom of this because nobody is going to fix anything anyway :D

[ReenigneArcher]

I've tried it like 10 different times on different repos, and could never get it to work myself.

[AlexanderBartash]

Maybe it is even more broken than we think. There is likely some other factor in play.

[jgsuess]

+1, hitting this too — and can confirm the root cause with a clean test. We have a repository ruleset (require_code_owner_review + required_approving_review_count) with a GitHub App added as a bypass_actors entry (Integration type, tried both bypass_mode: always and pull_request). The app auto-approves and calls gh pr merge --auto --squash on Dependabot PRs. Result: reviewDecision stays REVIEW_REQUIRED and mergeStateStatus stays BLOCKED indefinitely (confirmed via a 10-minute poll with a fresh trigger event and no manual intervention) — auto-merge never completes despite the bypass. As a direct comparison, calling the raw REST PUT /pulls/{n}/merge endpoint on the same PR, same actor permissions, succeeded instantly with no special flag. So the bypass_actors grant is honored by the synchronous merge endpoint but not by the async auto-merge completion path. This is currently blocking essential Dependabot automerge automation for us across multiple repositories.

[jgsuess]

Follow-up with concrete repro data, in case it helps someone on the GitHub side pick this up — this is fully reproducible on our end:

Setup: Repository ruleset, pull_request rule, require_code_owner_review: true, required_approving_review_count: 1. A GitHub App added as a bypass_actors entry (Integration type), tested with both bypass_mode: "always" and bypass_mode: "pull_request".

Test A — PR with all checks green, approved by the bypass-listed App, auto-merge enabled via gh pr merge --auto --squash. Re-triggered a fresh review + fresh auto-merge request, then polled mergeStateStatus/reviewDecision every 20s for 10 minutes with zero manual intervention. Result: BLOCKED / REVIEW_REQUIRED on all 30/30 polls — auto-merge never completed.

Test B — same PR conditions, but instead of gh pr merge --auto, called the merge endpoint directly and synchronously:

gh api repos/OWNER/REPO/pulls/N/merge -X PUT -f merge_method=squash

No special override flag, no admin privileges beyond being a listed bypass actor. Result: merged instantly, no error.

So the bypass grant itself is real and correctly enforced by the synchronous merge endpoint — it's specifically the async/deferred auto-merge completion path that never re-checks bypass_actors when it finally tries to execute the merge. This reproduces identically across two separate repositories in our org, with both bypass_mode values.

Workaround for anyone stuck on this: have your automation call the merge endpoint directly (Test B) instead of relying on gh pr merge --auto / enablePullRequestAutoMerge — it actually works.

[shadow-color-c]

Test B — same PR conditions, but instead of gh pr merge --auto, called the merge endpoint directly and synchronously:

gh api repos/OWNER/REPO/pulls/N/merge -X PUT -f merge_method=squash

No special override flag, no admin privileges beyond being a listed bypass actor. Result: merged instantly, no error.

So the bypass grant itself is real and correctly enforced by the synchronous merge endpoint — it's specifically the async/deferred auto-merge completion path that never re-checks bypass_actors when it finally tries to execute the merge. This reproduces identically across two separate repositories in our org, with both bypass_mode values.

Workaround for anyone stuck on this: have your automation call the merge endpoint directly (Test B) instead of relying on gh pr merge --auto / enablePullRequestAutoMerge — it actually works.

I can attest that this works except that it doesn't respect merge queues, doesn't care about failing PR checks, and merges directly to the trunk if that's the target, which can violate some company policies. Since we use a merge queue, we used a different approach than this which also works while meeting our needs.

REPO="OWNER/REPO"
PR=123   # your PR number (from your PR-create step, a var, etc.)

# Resolve the PR's GraphQL node id (what the mutation needs).
PR_ID=$(gh pr view "$PR" --repo "$REPO" --json id --jq '.id')

# Add it to the merge queue.
gh api graphql \
  -f query='mutation($id:ID!){ enqueuePullRequest(input:{pullRequestId:$id}){ mergeQueueEntry{ state } } }' \
  -f id="$PR_ID"