Creating rulesets for a repository

Introduction

You can create rulesets to control how users can interact with selected branches and tags in a repository. You can control things like who can push commits to a certain branch and how the commits must be formatted, or who can delete or rename a tag. You can also prevent people from renaming repositories.

When you create a ruleset, you can allow certain users to bypass the rules in the ruleset.

For more information on rulesets, see "About rulesets."

You can also create rulesets for all repositories in an organization. For more information, see "Creating rulesets for repositories in your organization."

Using fnmatch syntax

You can use fnmatch syntax to define patterns to target when you create a ruleset.

You can use the * wildcard to match any string of characters. Because GitHub uses the File::FNM_PATHNAME flag for the File.fnmatch syntax, the * wildcard does not match directory separators (/). For example, qa/* will match all branches beginning with qa/ and containing a single slash, but will not match qa/foo/bar. You can include any number of slashes after qa with qa/**/*, which would match, for example, qa/foo/bar/foobar/hello-world. You can also extend the qa string with qa**/**/* to make the rule more inclusive.

For more information about syntax options, see the fnmatch documentation.

Unsupported fnmatch syntax

Not all expressions from the fnmatch syntax are supported in branch protection rules. Please be aware of the following constraints:

• You cannot use the backslash (\) character as a quoting character, as GitHub does not support the use of backslashes in branch protection rules.
• You can specify character sets within square brackets ([]), but you cannot currently complement a set with the ^ operator (e.g., [^charset]).
• Although GitHub supports File::FNM_PATHNAME in fnmatch syntax, File::FNM_EXTGLOB is not supported.

Using regular expressions for commit metadata

When you add metadata restrictions for a ruleset that targets branches or tags, you can use regular expression syntax to define patterns that the relevant metadata, such as the commit message or the branch or tag name, must or must not match.

Metadata restrictions do not accept regex patterns by default. To enable this, select the Must match a given regex pattern restriction when you are creating the metadata restrictions for your ruleset.

Rulesets support RE2 syntax. For more information, see Google's syntax guide. To validate your expressions, you can use the validator on regex101.com, selecting the "Golang" flavor in the left sidebar.

By default, regular expressions in metadata restrictions do not consider multiple lines of text. For example, if you have a multiline commit message, the pattern ^ABC will be a match if the first line of the message starts with ABC. To match multiple lines of the message, start your expression with (?m).

The negative lookahead assertion, denoted ?!, is not supported. However, for cases where you need to look for a given string that is not followed by another given string, you can use the positive lookahead assertion, denoted ?, combined with the "Must not match a given regex pattern" requirement.

Useful regular expression patterns

The following examples provide useful patterns for commit metadata. To use these patterns, set Requirement to "Must match a given regex pattern".

Ensure branch names are compatible with Windows

You can use the following pattern to ensure that branch names only include numbers, lowercase letters, and the characters - and _. This ensures branch names are compatible with operating systems that do not use case-sensitive file systems by default.

\A[0-9a-z-_]$

\A[0-9a-z-_]$

Matches: my-branch

Does not match: myBranch

Ensure tag names use semantic versioning

You can use the following pattern to ensure tag names conform to semantic versioning. For more information, see the documentation on semver.org.

^(0|[1-9]\d*)\.(0|[1-9]\d*)\.(0|[1-9]\d*)(?:-((?:0|[1-9]\d*|\d*[a-zA-Z-][0-9a-zA-Z-]*)(?:\.(?:0|[1-9]\d*|\d*[a-zA-Z-][0-9a-zA-Z-]*))*))?(?:\+([0-9a-zA-Z-]+(?:\.[0-9a-zA-Z-]+)*))?$

^(0|[1-9]\d*)\.(0|[1-9]\d*)\.(0|[1-9]\d*)(?:-((?:0|[1-9]\d*|\d*[a-zA-Z-][0-9a-zA-Z-]*)(?:\.(?:0|[1-9]\d*|\d*[a-zA-Z-][0-9a-zA-Z-]*))*))?(?:\+([0-9a-zA-Z-]+(?:\.[0-9a-zA-Z-]+)*))?$

Matches: 1.2.3, 10.20.30, 1.1.2-prerelease+meta

Does not match: 1.2, 1.2-SNAPSHOT

Limit length of lines in commit messages

The Pro Git book recommends limiting the first line of a commit message to around 50 characters.

You can use the following pattern to ensure the first line in a commit message contains 50 characters or fewer.

\A.{1,50}$

\A.{1,50}$

Ensure commit messages start with a resolution and issue number

You can use the following pattern to ensure that commit messages contain the word Resolves: or Fixes:, followed by a string like #1234.

^(Resolves|Fixes): \#[0-9]+$

^(Resolves|Fixes): \#[0-9]+$

Matches: Fixes: #1234

Does not match: Add conditional logic to foo.bar

Enforce conventional commits

You can use the following pattern to ensure that commit messages conform to the Conventional Commits specification. For more information, see conventionalcommits.org.

^(build|chore|ci|docs|feat|fix|perf|refactor|revert|style|test){1}(\([\w\-\.]+\))?(!)?: ([\w ])+([\s\S]*)

^(build|chore|ci|docs|feat|fix|perf|refactor|revert|style|test){1}(\([\w\-\.]+\))?(!)?: ([\w ])+([\s\S]*)

Matches: feat: allow provided config object to extend other configs

Does not match: Add conditional logic to foo.bar

Using ruleset enforcement statuses

While creating or editing your ruleset, you can use enforcement statuses to configure how your ruleset will be enforced.

You can select any of the following enforcement statuses for your ruleset.

• Active: your ruleset will be enforced upon creation.
• Evaluate: your ruleset will not be enforced, but you will be able to monitor which actions would or would not violate rules on the "Rule Insights" page.
• Disabled: your ruleset will not be enforced or evaluated.

Using "Evaluate" mode is a great option for testing your ruleset without enforcing it. You can use the "Rule Insights" page to see if the contribution would have violated the rule. For more information, see "Managing rulesets for a repository."

Creating a branch or tag ruleset

1. On GitHub, navigate to the main page of the repository.

2. Under your repository name, click Settings. If you cannot see the "Settings" tab, select the dropdown menu, then click Settings.

   

3. In the left sidebar, under "Code and automation," click Rules, then click Rulesets.

   

4. You can create a ruleset targeting branches, or a ruleset targeting tags.

   • To create a ruleset targeting branches, click New branch ruleset.

   • To create a ruleset targeting tags, select , then click New tag ruleset.

     

5. Under "Ruleset name," type a name for the ruleset.

6. Optionally, to change the default enforcement status, click Disabled and select an enforcement status. For more information about enforcement statuses, see "About rulesets."

Granting bypass permissions for your branch or tag ruleset

You can grant certain roles, teams, or apps bypass permissions for your ruleset. The following are eligible for bypass access:

• Repository admins, organization owners, and enterprise owners
• The maintain or write role, or custom repository roles based on the write role
• Teams
• Deploy keys
• GitHub Apps
• Dependabot. For more information about Dependabot, see "Dependabot quickstart guide."

1. To grant bypass permissions for the ruleset, in the "Bypass list" section, click Add bypass.

2. In the "Add bypass" modal dialog that appears, search for the role, team, or app you would like to grant bypass permissions, then select the role, team, or app from the "Suggestions" section and click Add Selected.

3. Optionally, to grant bypass to an actor without allowing them to push directly to a repository, to the right of "Always allow," click , then click For pull requests only.

   The selected actor is now required to open a pull request to make changes to a repository, creating a clear trail of their changes in the pull request and audit log. The actor can then choose to bypass any branch protections and merge that pull request.

Choosing which branches or tags to target

To target branches or tags, in the "Target branches" or "Target tags" section, select Add a target, then select how you want to include or exclude branches or tags. You can use fnmatch syntax to include or exclude branches or tags based on a pattern. For more information, see "Using fnmatch syntax."

You can add multiple targeting criteria to the same ruleset. For example, you could include the default branch, include any branches matching the pattern *feature*, and then specifically exclude a branch matching the pattern not-a-feature.

Selecting branch or tag protections

In the "Branch protections" or "Tag protections" section, select the rules you want to include in the ruleset. When you select a rule, you may be able to enter additional settings for the rule. For more information on the rules, see "Available rules for rulesets."

Adding metadata restrictions

Your metadata restrictions should be intended to increase consistency between commits in your repository. They are not intended to replace security measures such as requiring code review via pull requests.

1. To add a rule to control commit metadata or branch names, in the "Restrictions" section when creating or editing a ruleset, click Restrict commit metadata or Restrict branch names.

2. Configure the settings for the restriction, then click Add. You can add multiple restrictions to the same ruleset.

3. To match a given regex pattern, in the "Requirement" dropdown, select Must match a given regex pattern.

   For most requirements, such as "Must start with a matching pattern," the pattern you enter is interpreted literally, and wildcards are not supported. For example, the * character only represents the literal * character.

   For more complex patterns, you can select "Must match a given regex pattern" or "Must not match a given regex pattern," then use regular expression syntax to define the matching pattern. For more information, see "About regular expressions for commit metadata" in the GitHub Enterprise Cloud documentation.

   Anyone who views the rulesets for a repository will be able to see the description you provide.

4. Optionally, before enacting your ruleset with metadata restrictions, select the "Evaluate" enforcement status for your ruleset to test the effects of any metadata restrictions without impacting contributors. For more information on metadata restrictions, see "Available rules for rulesets."

Finalizing your branch or tag ruleset and next steps

To finish creating your ruleset, click Create. If the enforcement status of the ruleset is set to "Active", the ruleset takes effect immediately.

You can view insights for the ruleset to see how the rules are affecting your contributors. If the enforcement status is set to "Evaluate", you can see which actions would have passed or failed if the ruleset was active. For more information on insights for rulesets, see "Managing rulesets for a repository."