As someone approving pull requests, I want automation to move them in to QA like before

[pdurbin]

The main repo has been suffering from a problem for months where pull requests are not automatically moved into QA like before.

As far as I know, this works fine for all other repos besides the main "dataverse" repo.

I believe Danny already tried deleting and recreating the automation but we could try this again.

We can also open a support ticket with GitHub.

Finally, we could try their new forum: https://github.com/github/feedback/discussions

[pdurbin]

Try creating a new QA column?

Estimate is about time boxing. How much time to spend.

[pdurbin]

As described in the message below that I just sent to GitHub support, I tried disabling automation on the old "QA" column and creating a new column called "QA2" with the same automation ("Approved by reviewer"), but the problem persists.

The message I sent is below:

We've been using automation for years to move pull requests to a column called "QA" at https://github.com/orgs/IQSS/projects/2

A few months ago, this stopped working.

I tried disabling automation on the old "QA" column and creating a new column called "QA2" with the same automation ("Approved by reviewer"), but the problem persists. When I click Approve, the pull request doesn't move. #8413 and #8378 are examples of pull requests that didn't move from "Review" to "QA2" after I clicked "Approve".

I don't see any way I can fix this. Perhaps there is something on the backend you can look at? Please help. Thanks!

Phil

I got a "thanks" but no ticket number:

[pdurbin]

Related discussion:

• https://github.community/t/project-board-to-do-automation-has-stopped-working/3297/14
• [BUG] Project board automation isn't working community/community#6056
• https://github.community/t/new-issues-not-being-auto-added-to-project-board/904/16

[pdurbin]

As I mentioned in Slack the other day, I deleted the original QA column and renamed QA2 to QA. This didn't help. Clicking "Approve" still doesn't move pull requests to QA.

I still haven't heard from GitHub support.

I did just asked for help in the new feedback forum at GitHub: community/community#11728

I'll also give an update at standup but I feel like I've put a "small" worth of effort into this so we should probably take it off the board. We can pick it up again if we hear from GitHub or the forum.

---

I took at look at GitHub's "Projects" API docs ( https://docs.github.com/en/rest/reference/projects ) in the hopes of finding some clue about our automation. Both "QA" and "Done" have automation configured through the web interface, but you can't tell from a JSON dump of those columns:

QA

  {
    "url": "https://api.github.com/projects/columns/17791090",
    "project_url": "https://api.github.com/projects/2606462",
    "cards_url": "https://api.github.com/projects/columns/17791090/cards",
    "id": 17791090,
    "node_id": "PC_lAPOAApNpc4AJ8V-zgEPeHI",
    "name": "QA 🔎✅",
    "created_at": "2022-02-15T20:35:16Z",
    "updated_at": "2022-02-18T18:52:21Z"
  }

Done

  {
    "url": "https://api.github.com/projects/columns/5298433",
    "project_url": "https://api.github.com/projects/2606462",
    "cards_url": "https://api.github.com/projects/columns/5298433/cards",
    "id": 5298433,
    "node_id": "MDEzOlByb2plY3RDb2x1bW41Mjk4NDMz",
    "name": "Done 🚀",
    "created_at": "2019-05-08T19:34:38Z",
    "updated_at": "2022-02-18T16:55:10Z"
  }

[pdurbin]

I just looked into the timing of when the automation stopped working and the change at least correlates with when we set up branch protection rules in #8166.

• Nov 22: Automation worked to put a PR into QA: IQSS/8252: Correct error response to 403/forbidden in test #8253
• Nov 23: I set up branch protection rules: Implement Protected Branches #8166 (comment)
• Nov 29: A PR was moved manually to QA, presumable because automation had stopped working: Iqss/8247 flyout menu accessibility #8257

As a test we could try disabling branch protection temporarily. If automation works again, we can try to find a branch protection configuration that's compatible with automation.

[pdurbin]

Good news! It turns out that adding a branch protection rule indeed caused the "move to QA" automation ("Approved by reviewer") to stop working.

I adjusted the rule for develop (but not master) by checking the box for "Require approvals" and setting the required number to "1" like this:

Then we tested with pull request #8458 and it worked! Hitting "Approve" on the PR moved it to QA. Phew.

I should note that while the rule says approvals are required before merging, this is only true for non-admins. When admins see "merging is blocked" like this...

... they can click "Merge pull request" anyway and then check the "Use your administrator privileges to merge this pull request" box and merge anyway, like this:

So it's an extra step for admins but I think that's fine. Overall, the branch protection rules are nice. Here's a screenshot of how the develop rules look. Again, the only change is to check the box requiring approvals and setting it to 1, so it's only a slight change from what we first set up in #8166.

Moving to review. No code to look at. Just this comment, really.