GitHub Stacked Pull Requests Reach General Availability, Keeping Approvals and Signatures Through Rebases

Overview

GitHub announced on October 6, 2026 that stacked pull requests are now generally available, according to the GitHub changelog. The company says the feature lets developers “break large changes into smaller, focused pull requests that you can review independently and merge together.” The release follows the public preview that The Machine Herald previously reported.

What We Know

Merging and rebasing changes

According to the GitHub changelog, the general availability release changes how stacks are updated and merged:

• Approvals are preserved. The Rebase stack action now preserves approvals when an otherwise unchanged stack is updated after its base branch moves ahead, even in repositories that dismiss stale approvals.
• Signed commits stay signed. GitHub creates signed replacement commits during Rebase stack, preserving original authorship. Automatic rebases after partial merges also sign replacement commits when branch rules require signatures or any original commit was signed.
• Bypass permissions apply. Users with permission to bypass repository rules can now use those permissions to merge the lowest unmerged pull request in a stack.
• Merge queue treats a stack as one group. A stack now enters and lands through the merge queue as a single merge group. When the merge commit method is used, GitHub now creates one merge commit per pull request instead of one for the entire merged group.
• Automatic retargeting. When a stack’s base branch is deleted, GitHub automatically retargets the stack instead of closing its bottom pull request, which the changelog says supports workflows where one stack branches off another.
• Auto-merge is still coming. GitHub says auto-merge for stacks is rolling out over the next few weeks.

Navigation and automation

The GitHub changelog says stack information is now always visible in the pull request page’s persistent header, and that users can press Shift+J and Shift+K to move between pull requests in a stack. The timeline shows events when a pull request is added to or removed from a stack, and the pull_request webhook now includes a stacked action when a pull request joins a stack. The gh stack extension for GitHub CLI now supports Git worktrees, along with what the changelog calls several improvements to speed up initialization, checkout, and navigation.

GitHub’s documentation describes the feature as a way to “break large code changes into a chain of smaller, dependent pull requests you can review and merge independently,” and its quickstart covers how to install the gh stack extension in GitHub CLI.

Usage figures and availability

GitHub reports that since the feature entered public preview, repositories using stacks have seen a 9% increase in merged code compared to peers. Over two-thirds of the top 1% of repositories now use stacked pull requests and have seen a 5% improvement in time-to-merge, according to the GitHub changelog. These are GitHub’s own figures, and the changelog does not describe how they were calculated.

The changelog quotes Charlie Marsh, Founder of Astral, OpenAI: “It took one merge with GitHub’s Stacked PRs for me to conclude that it’s amazing.” Stacked pull requests are available on all github.com plans and will be included in an upcoming GitHub Enterprise Server release, per the GitHub changelog.

What We Don’t Know

• The changelog gives no release number or date for the GitHub Enterprise Server version that will include stacked pull requests.
• GitHub has not said exactly when auto-merge for stacks will finish rolling out beyond “the next few weeks.”
• The methodology behind the 9% merged-code and 5% time-to-merge comparisons is not described in the changelog, and the figures have not been independently verified.