Determine if a commit is a merge commit through Github API

Question

Is it possible through the Github API to tell if a commit is a merge commit? And which branch it was merged from?

I am trying to look at all the files changed when comparing two commits on a branch, but I want to ignore any changes done by merge commits from the branch that it's branched from. Any branches that have branched off the branch will not have their merge commits ignored.

Answer 1

curl \
-H "Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json" \
https://api.github.com/repos/octocat/hello-world/commits

You can use this API to fetch all the commits. After fetching all the commits the response would look like this as per GitHub's API documentation.

[


{
    "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/octocat/Hello-World/commits/6dcb09b5b57875f334f61aebed695e2e4193db5e",
    "sha": "6dcb09b5b57875f334f61aebed695e2e4193db5e",
    "node_id": "MDY6Q29tbWl0NmRjYjA5YjViNTc4NzVmMzM0ZjYxYWViZWQ2OTVlMmU0MTkzZGI1ZQ==",
    "html_url": "https://github.com/octocat/Hello-World/commit/6dcb09b5b57875f334f61aebed695e2e4193db5e",
    "comments_url": "https://api.github.com/repos/octocat/Hello-World/commits/6dcb09b5b57875f334f61aebed695e2e4193db5e/comments",
    "commit": {
      "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/octocat/Hello-World/git/commits/6dcb09b5b57875f334f61aebed695e2e4193db5e",
      "author": {
        "name": "Monalisa Octocat",
        "email": "[email protected]",
        "date": "2011-04-14T16:00:49Z"
      },
      "committer": {
        "name": "Monalisa Octocat",
        "email": "[email protected]",
        "date": "2011-04-14T16:00:49Z"
      },
      "message": "Fix all the bugs",
      "tree": {
        "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/octocat/Hello-World/tree/6dcb09b5b57875f334f61aebed695e2e4193db5e",
        "sha": "6dcb09b5b57875f334f61aebed695e2e4193db5e"
      },
      "comment_count": 0,
      "verification": {
        "verified": false,
        "reason": "unsigned",
        "signature": null,
        "payload": null
      }
    },
    "author": {
      "login": "octocat",
      "id": 1,
      "node_id": "MDQ6VXNlcjE=",
      "avatar_url": "https://github.com/images/error/octocat_happy.gif",
      "gravatar_id": "",
      "url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat",
      "html_url": "https://github.com/octocat",
      "followers_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/followers",
      "following_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/following{/other_user}",
      "gists_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/gists{/gist_id}",
      "starred_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/starred{/owner}{/repo}",
      "subscriptions_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/subscriptions",
      "organizations_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/orgs",
      "repos_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/repos",
      "events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/events{/privacy}",
      "received_events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/received_events",
      "type": "User",
      "site_admin": false
    },
    "committer": {
      "login": "octocat",
      "id": 1,
      "node_id": "MDQ6VXNlcjE=",
      "avatar_url": "https://github.com/images/error/octocat_happy.gif",
      "gravatar_id": "",
      "url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat",
      "html_url": "https://github.com/octocat",
      "followers_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/followers",
      "following_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/following{/other_user}",
      "gists_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/gists{/gist_id}",
      "starred_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/starred{/owner}{/repo}",
      "subscriptions_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/subscriptions",
      "organizations_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/orgs",
      "repos_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/repos",
      "events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/events{/privacy}",
      "received_events_url": "https://api.github.com/users/octocat/received_events",
      "type": "User",
      "site_admin": false
    },
    "parents": [
      {
        "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/octocat/Hello-World/commits/6dcb09b5b57875f334f61aebed695e2e4193db5e",
        "sha": "6dcb09b5b57875f334f61aebed695e2e4193db5e"
      }
    ]
  }
]

In the above payload, for each item in the array, if you have multiple lines in the "parents" key, then it means it is a merge commit. The above payload example has only one line in the "parents" array, so it is not a merge commit.

To find out which branch it was merged from, I believe there is currently no solution using the Github API.