Allowing only certain branches to PR merge to main(master) branch

Question

I'm looking for methods to protect main branch by preventing branches except dev branch from pull request merge to main branch. But I could not find a way to it. Is there any way for it? or is it possible using Github Action?

Answer 1

I took Rob Bos's advice and created a workflow to do this, here is what I have in my enforcer.yaml file

name: 'Check Branch'

on:
  pull_request:

jobs:
  check_branch:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Check branch
        if: github.base_ref == 'main' && github.head_ref != 'dev'
        run: |
          echo "ERROR: You can only merge to main from dev."
          exit 1

Then I have the workflow check_branch as a required status check in the branch protection rule for my main branch. Attempting a pull request into main from any branch other than dev fails.

Answer 2

That's not possible out of the box. You can write a workflow that runs on a PR and fails if the source branch is not dev. Then add this workflow as a required check in the branch protection rule for the main branch.