To keep AI-assisted changes from merging without accountable review, protect the repository’s default branch and relevant release branches, require pull requests and approvals, route sensitive files to code owners, and require appropriate checks. GitHub does not provide a separate AI-approval switch: these are standard repository controls applied to work authored by people or agents. They enforce a process, not the correctness or safety of AI-generated code.
Choose branch protection or a ruleset
For a small or narrowly scoped setup, a classic branch-protection rule can protect a named branch or a pattern. Create rules for the default branch and any release branches that need the same merge gate. GitHub notes that the branch named in a rule does not have to exist yet: Managing a branch protection rule.
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Classic rules have an important limitation: only one matching classic branch-protection rule applies at a time. Overlapping patterns can therefore make the effective policy difficult to reason about. When requirements must apply consistently across multiple branches, or need to compose, consider rulesets instead. Rulesets can be combined and support explicit bypass actors and modes; classic rules may be simpler for a single repository and limited branch scope. See GitHub’s rulesets overview.
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Set pull-request and approval requirements
- Open the repository on GitHub and go to Settings → Branches.
- Under branch protection rules, choose to add a rule. Enter the target branch name or pattern.
- Enable Require a pull request before merging.
- Set the required number of approvals and, if appropriate, require review from code owners.
- Save the rule, then confirm that it matches the intended branches.
Choose an approval count that fits the team and the risk of the changes. One knowledgeable reviewer may be workable for a small team; higher-risk changes may warrant more review. The GitHub documentation does not establish a universal number. The setting is a merge gate, not a substitute for deciding who is qualified to review a particular change. See About protected branches.
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Keep approvals current when an agent pushes more commits
An approval can become a poor signal if an agent adds commits after the review. In the rule’s pull-request options, consider one of two freshness controls:
- Dismiss stale pull request approvals when new commits are pushed: a new commit invalidates earlier approvals, so reviewers must approve again.
- Require approval of the most recent reviewable push: someone other than the person who made that push must approve it.
The first option is stricter about new commits generally; the second focuses on review of the latest reviewable push. Both can add review time. GitHub also notes that these requirements can cause manual merge-commit pushes to fail, and that a changed merge base can make approvals stale. Check the workflow implications in Managing a branch protection rule and About protected branches.
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Route sensitive files to code owners
Use a CODEOWNERS file to request review from people responsible for high-impact paths—for example, security configuration, deployment workflows, dependency policy, CI configuration, or agent instruction files. Put the file in a supported location in the repository, and enable required code-owner review in the branch rule. GitHub reads the CODEOWNERS file from the pull request’s base branch, so changes to ownership rules do not take effect merely because they appear in the pull request being reviewed.
If several owners are listed for a path, approval from any one of them satisfies the code-owner requirement. Assign an owner to the CODEOWNERS file itself and require that owner’s review, so changes to the routing policy receive oversight too. GitHub documents these semantics in About code owners.
Require meaningful checks and resolved discussions
Enable required status checks for the CI and security workflows that actually run on the relevant pull requests. Select checks that exist, are consistently named, and provide useful evidence for the changes being merged. A required check that never runs on the protected branch’s pull requests can block merging without improving review.
You can also require conversations to be resolved before merging. This makes open review discussions a merge blocker; it does not determine whether the discussion was resolved well. Choose the checks and discussion setting in the branch-protection rule, using GitHub’s setup guide.
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Decide who can bypass the policy
Administrators and custom roles with the bypass-branch-protections permission are not covered by branch-protection restrictions by default. Decide whether that exception is acceptable for your repository. Limit who can dismiss reviews and keep any bypass access narrow and identifiable. GitHub describes the default exception in About protected branches.
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Verify the actual merge path
After saving the policy, open a test pull request and confirm each intended control in the repository itself:
- An unapproved pull request targeting a protected branch cannot merge.
- A change to a code-owned path requests the expected reviewer and requires the configured approval.
- The required checks appear on the pull request and must pass.
- A new agent push produces the configured approval behavior—either invalidating stale approvals or requiring a different person to approve the latest reviewable push.
- The configured bypass behavior matches the access policy you intended.
This verification catches mismatches between a rule’s pattern, the checks that run, and the team’s actual pull-request workflow. It does not certify that an AI-authored change is safe; reviewers and checks still need to assess the code itself.
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