How to merge branches on github.com without doing pull request? - github

Question

It looks like GitHub only allows merging of branches by making a pull request and then merging.
Is there a way to merge mobile into master in a single step without cloning locally?
I only see this button, which creates a pull request that needs to be merged in a second step:

Answer 1

Github does not provide such a mechanism - and by following best practices, it doesn't make sense for them to provide such a feature.
The steps are to Merge it on your machine, then Push:
git merge mobile
git push
Pull requests are really only for repositories you don't control, and/or some code review process.
Per comments on the question, if this isn't convenient for you, very likely it is a sign of going against best practices, hindering your ability to work correctly.

Answer 2

Github does not provide this functionality via the web UI at this point.

Answer 3

You can't do it on the website itself, but you can do it via the Branches API, without cloning locally:
curl \
--header "Authorization: token $TOKEN" \
--data '{"base":"master","head":"develop","commit_message":"YOOOO"}' \
https://api.github.com/repos/$USER/$REPO/merges

Answer 4

You can use GitHub Docs' GraphQL API Explorer to run a mergeBranch mutation:
mutation {
mergeBranch(
input: {
repositoryId: "MDEwOlJlcG9zaXRvcwNzI="
base: "master"
head: "cool_feature"
commitMessage: "Shipped cool_feature!"
}
) {
clientMutationId
mergeCommit {
oid
message
}
}
}
Note: You can look up your repository's id by using the repository query to search by owner and name.
{
repository(owner: "my-name", name: "my-repo") {
id
}
}

Answer 5

GitHub's desktop app lets you do this with the menu item Branch → Merge Into Current Branch.... Presumably it's just doing a git merge under the hood as in Eevee's answer, but it's nice and easy. :)