Merge Reminders

Don't forget

January 2025

I work solo on a lot of projects, meaning the only person to review my code is me. Sometimes, when revisiting a project after a break, I forget exactly how to work on a project. It can be helpful to leave comments behind, but those often get overlooked.

Now comments can become more powerful. By flagging a comment with MERGE: I can make that comment appear automatically on a pull request.

Installation

First, add this code to .github/workflows/merge-comment-reminders.yml

name: Merge Comment Reminders

on:
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, edited, synchronize]

jobs:
  merge-comment-reminders-action:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - name: Merge Comment Reminders
        uses: pjflanagan/merge-reminders@v1.0.0

Make sure you have enabled read and write action permissions in you Github repository settings. To do so, go to Actions > General > Workflow permissions and allow actions to “Read and write permissions”

Usage

Add comments beginning with MERGE: to your code like this:

// Header.tsx

const offsetHeight = 120; // MERGE: Be sure `offsetHeight` is reflected in `style.module.scss`

Comments can use Markdown and Github usernames:

# api.py

# MERGE: Update the [documentation](https://docs.example.com) or @pjflanagan will be **very** upset
class API:
  # ...

Then, when a dev creates a PR that modifies a file with MERGE: comments, those instructions will automatically be commented on your PRs. Like this:

**Merge Reminders**
- [ ] `Header.tsx`: Be sure `offsetHeight` is reflected in `style.module.scss`
- [ ] `api.py` Update the [documentation](https://docs.example.com) or @pjflanagan will be **very** upset

You can then enforce all PR checkboxes are ticked before merging using Task Completed Checker.

Now you’ve configured your repo to require devs to acknowledge instructions for each file they updated. This is useful when:

• You want to ask devs to adhere to a pattern
• You need devs to update a different file to match changes in this one
• You need to remind devs to update documentation
• You need devs to be aware of how their code changes might cause unwanted side effects

Specific use cases

Merge Reminders only supports # and // comments. If the language uses a different type of comment you’ll have to fake it.

<!--
  HTML comment
  # MERGE: be sure to update footer links to match the header links
-->