Avoid creating merge commit

[piyushchauhan2011]

I want to know if it's possible if we can avoid creating merge commit and do a fast forward with some option. Right now it creates two commits

e.g. https://github.com/piyushchauhan2011/bug-free-palm-tree/commits/staging

[andrewfenn]

Yes I would like to know this too. For example when there is no changes to be applied it will create an empty commit that does nothing.

[andrewfenn]

I have made a pull request that skips merges for fast-forwards https://github.com/devmasx/merge-branch/pull/28

[peterlauri]

It would be handy to have a configuration like:

allow_fastforward: true

[isaachinman]

Is there any update on this issue's original request? In our org we prefer squash merging, and only want to have a single commit on the master/main branch.

If anyone is aware of how to make this possible with devmasx/merge-branch, or indeed a raw bash/octokit script, please let me know.

[piyushchauhan2011]

@isaachinman

For now I switched to bash script. My use case was to auto sync main branch to staging for deployment purposes

name: staging flow

on:
  workflow_dispatch: # trigger job manually
  push:
    branches:
      - main
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - name: Release to staging
        run: |
          git config user.email "ci@organization.com"
          git config user.name "Organization CI"
          git checkout -b staging # staging branch for deployment
          git reset --hard main # auto replace staging with main branch for deployment 
          git push -f --set-upstream origin staging

If staging branch is protected, it will fail. So generally, best to create a bot github account and give force push rights and set appropriate email and name

[isaachinman]

@piyushchauhan2011 I believe there are many prebuilt GH actions for that exact purpose. For anyone looking to merge a PR/branch without a merge commit, this is what I ended up with:

name: Auto-Merge Pull Requests

on:
  pull_request:
    types: [labeled]

jobs:
  auto_merge_prs:
    name: Auto-Merge PRs
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@master
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0

      - name: Merge changes into master
        run: |
          git config --local user.email "actions@github.com"
          git config --local user.name "Github Actions"

          git switch master
          git merge origin/my-branch --no-commit

          git push origin master

Quite simple in the end. Will see how it holds up over time.

In terms of branch protection, scope PATs are probably a cleaner solution than bot accounts.

[piyushchauhan2011]

Nice 👍🏼 . I agree with PATs, easier to maintain than bot accounts if they are only used for just this purpose