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ci: preserve *-maintenance branches when merging PRs - #243
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GitHub's repo-wide "Automatically delete head branches" setting cannot exclude long-lived release branches by pattern, so enabling it would delete branches like `0.19-maintenance` the moment a cherry-pick PR lands on `main`. Replace it with a workflow that deletes the head branch on PR merge unless the branch name ends in `-maintenance`. The repo setting must be disabled for this workflow to be authoritative; otherwise it races the workflow for non-maintenance branches. GitHub deletes via REST return 422 when the ref is already gone (manual delete, prior run, or another workflow); we treat that as success so re-runs and races stay green. Cross-repo (fork) PRs are skipped because GitHub cannot delete branches in a fork's repository anyway. Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Pull request overview
Introduces a GitHub Actions workflow to delete merged PR head branches while preserving long-lived *-maintenance branches, replacing GitHub’s repo-wide “Automatically delete head branches” setting.
Changes:
- Adds a
pull_request_target: closedworkflow that deletes the head branch after merge when the PR comes from the same repo. - Skips deletion for branches whose names end with
-maintenance. - Makes deletion re-runnable by treating “already deleted” as a successful outcome.
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Address review feedback on #243: - Replace the broad `endsWith('-maintenance')` job filter with a precise `^[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}-maintenance$` check in the script. GitHub Actions expressions lack regex support, so the tightened check has to live in `run:` instead of the job-level `if:`. This prevents an unrelated branch like `foo-maintenance` from being spared accidentally. - Restrict the "already deleted" tolerance to responses that contain both `HTTP 422` and `Reference does not exist`, instead of any substring `not found`. The previous match swallowed unrelated 404s (wrong repo, missing permission, bad API path) and left the merged branch undeleted while the workflow reported success. Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
whme
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May 23, 2026
The header comment said this workflow preserves `*-maintenance` branches, but the active check matches only `<major>.<minor>-maintenance` with 1-3 digit components. Tighten the wording so the documentation matches the regex on line 51. Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Summary
Automatically delete head branchessetting with a workflow that skips<major>.<minor>-maintenancebranches (1-3 digit version components, e.g.0.19-maintenance), so long-lived release branches are not deleted when a cherry-pick PR merges intomain.pull_request_target: closed, only whenmerged == trueand the head and base repo match (forks are skipped since GitHub cannot delete branches in a fork's repo).422 Reference does not existas success so re-runs and races with manual deletes stay green; persistent failures surface as a red job.Important
The repo setting Settings -> General -> Automatically delete head branches must be disabled for this workflow to be the single source of truth. Otherwise the setting wins for non-maintenance branches and races this workflow.
Test plan
Automatically delete head branchessetting before merging this PR.ci/preserve-maintenance-branches-on-merge) and confirm the workflow runs and the branch is deleted afterwards.0.19-maintenance->maincherry-pick PR and confirm0.19-maintenanceis still present after merge.