Is it possible to merge only parts of a stack?

[marcomasser]

We’re often working like this:

• We have a main branch.
• Then, we create a branch for a specific release, e.g. release/v42. We also open a PR for that branch to document the release procedure and other things.
• When we implement fixes that should go into the release, we create branches away from release/v42 and open PRs that target that branch. Let’s say that branch is bugfix/fix-issue, so the chain of branches is main → release/v42 → bugfix/fix-issue. When that fix is done, we merge it into the release branch.

I thought that GitHub Stacks would work nicely in such a scenario, but after creating a stack for the chain of branches mentioned above, the GitHub web UI only lets me merge the whole stack, not just the bugfix branch into the release branch. Am I missing something here or is this feature not suitable for this use case?

I installed the skill for Claude using gh skill install github/gh-stack and discussed it there and Claude seems to confirm my suspicion. It says I could still merge using the CLI, but I would like to keep using the web UI.

[CoreyKovalik]

not just the bugfix branch into the release branch. Am I missing something here or is this feature not suitable for this use case?

I ran into this, and my understanding is that you would not add the stack that PR if your intention isn't to treat it as part of the stack. You're be basically committing or targeting that PR separately.

Consider main → marco/feature → marco/feature-1 → marco/feature-2.

if you need to apply a bugfix to marco/feature-1, you have the option of pushing a bugfix commit to it and rebasing the rest of the stack, or in the scenario you're describing, you would point a PR at it. This would be something like marco/feature-1-bugfix and it would be independent of the stack. Once you merge into it, it's just a commit

[marcomasser]

Thanks, I think what you write is correct.

To look at it from a different angle: The situation I described is not a workflow that is covered by Stacked PRs. For my use case to work, it a branch other than main would have to be the base of the stack (in my example: release/v42). From what I read in the documentation on Stacked PRs it sounds like that is not supported.

[skarim]

You can create a stack with the trunk as any arbitrary branch, not just your default branch (main). From what I'm understanding, I think the best path for you would be to create a stack where your release branch is the trunk branch, allowing other PRs to be merged into it. Then you will probably have a separate single PR for merging your release branch into main.

So your "release stack" could look something like this:

├ ...
├ bugfix/fix-issue-3
├ bugfix/fix-issue-2
├ bugfix/fix-issue-1
└ release/v1 (trunk)

If you're using the CLI, you can create this by providing a specific trunk branch: gh stack init --base release/v1

Then after the entire stack is merged, you could open a separate PR to merge everything on release/v1 into main

[marcomasser]

Thanks, that sounds exactly like what I want!

I did not find a way to use a different trunk in the web UI, and what I read in the documentation always talked about main being the trunk. That's why I assumed it wasn't possible. I looked again and found this documented in the CLI command's docs for initializing a stack here: https://github.github.com/gh-stack/reference/cli/

It would be nice if this were also available in the web UI, but maybe it already is and I didn't do it right. I will keep an eye out for it!

Thanks again!