Feedback: "Restrict commit metadata" Ruleset conflicts with "Squash and Merge" workflows

[michael-sevcik]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Product Feedback

Body

The Context

I am using the native Repository Rulesets feature, specifically Restrict commit metadata, to enforce a strict Conventional Commits standard using a Regular Expression (e.g., requiring prefixes like feat:, fix:). My repository is also configured to allow auto-merging.

The Problem

Currently, the "Restrict commit metadata" rule evaluates every individual commit on the Pull Request branch. If a developer has messy local commits (e.g., wip, fixed typo), GitHub throws a "Merging is blocked" error.

This happens even if the developer uses Enable auto-merge (squash) with a perfectly formatted commit message and the ultimate squashed commit would be 100% compliant with the regex.

The Impact

This completely defeats the developer-experience benefits of a Squash workflow. To unblock the PR, developers are forced to do a local interactive rebase (git rebase -i) just to rewrite their temporary local commit messages to satisfy the ruleset.

Proposed Solution

It would be incredibly helpful if GitHub could bridge the gap between Rulesets and Merge Strategies. I propose this potential solution:

• Context-Aware Evaluation: If a PR has "auto-merge (squash)" as the merging strategy, the ruleset should automatically bypass intermediate branch commits and only validate the resulting squash payload.

Native Rulesets are a fantastic feature, but making them compatible with Squash-based workflows would make them significantly more powerful for enterprise and open-source teams!

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[kevinmun]

There's a similar discussion topic here:
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/108531

Definitely do wish that github would prioritize this - agreed that this feature parity with gitlab would make things much easier