Managing rulesets for repositories in your organization

You can edit, monitor, and delete existing rulesets to alter how people can interact with repositories in your organization.

Who can use this feature?

Organization owners and users with the "Manage organization ref update rules and rulesets" permission can manage rulesets at the organization level.

In this article

About managing rulesets for an organization

After creating a ruleset at the organization level, you can make changes to the ruleset to alter how people can interact with the targeted repositories. For example, you can add rules to better protect the branches or tags in those repositories. Organizational rulesets that apply to branches of a repository will no longer allow the repository administrator to rename branches of the targeted repository or change the default branch to another branch. Repository administrators may create and delete branches so long as they have the appropriate permissions.

You can use the REST and GraphQL APIs to manage rulesets. For more information, see REST API endpoints for rules and Mutations.

Note

Anyone with read access to a repository can view the active rulesets operating on that repository.

Editing a ruleset

You can edit a ruleset to change parts of the ruleset, such as the name, bypass permissions, or rules. You can also edit a ruleset to change its status, such as if you want to enable or temporarily disable a ruleset.

  1. In the upper-right corner of GitHub, click your profile picture, then click Your organizations.

  2. Next to the organization, click Settings.

  3. In the left sidebar, in the "Code, planning, and automation" section, click Repository, then click Rulesets.

    Screenshot of an organization's settings page. In the sidebar, a link labeled "Rulesets" is outlined in orange.

  4. On the "Rulesets" page, click the name of the ruleset you want to edit.

  5. Change the ruleset as required. For information on the available rules, see Available rules for rulesets.

  6. At the bottom of the page, click Save changes.

Deleting a ruleset

Tip

If you want to temporarily disable a ruleset but do not want to delete it, you can set the ruleset's status to "Disabled." For more information, see Editing a ruleset.

  1. In the upper-right corner of GitHub, click your profile picture, then click Your organizations.

  2. Next to the organization, click Settings.

  3. In the left sidebar, in the "Code, planning, and automation" section, click Repository, then click Rulesets.

    Screenshot of an organization's settings page. In the sidebar, a link labeled "Rulesets" is outlined in orange.

  4. Click the name of the ruleset you want to delete.

  5. To the right of the ruleset's name, select , then click Delete ruleset.

    Screenshot of the page for editing a ruleset. Below a button labeled with three dots, an option labeled "Delete ruleset" is outlined in orange.

Using ruleset history

Note

Ruleset history lists events triggered by changes that affect your rulesets within the last 180 days.

You can view all the changes to a ruleset and revert back to a specific iteration. You can also download a JSON file containing the ruleset's configuration at a specific iteration. The bypass list of a ruleset is excluded from the exported JSON file.

  1. In the upper-right corner of GitHub, click your profile picture, then click Your organizations.

  2. Next to the organization, click Settings.

  3. In the left sidebar, in the "Code, planning, and automation" section, click Repository, then click Rulesets.

    Screenshot of an organization's settings page. In the sidebar, a link labeled "Rulesets" is outlined in orange.

  4. To view the history of changes to the ruleset, select to the right of the ruleset's name, then click History.

    Screenshot of the page for repository rulesets. Below a button labeled with three dots, an option labeled "History" is outlined in orange.

  5. To the right of the specific iteration, select , then click Compare changes, Restore, or Download.

    Screenshot of the page for repository rulesets history. A dropdown menu labeled with three dots is expanded and highlighted with an orange outline.

Importing a ruleset

You can import a ruleset from another repository or organization using the exported JSON file from the previous section. This can be useful if you want to apply the same ruleset to multiple repositories or organizations.

  1. In the upper-right corner of GitHub, click your profile picture, then click Your organizations.

  2. Next to the organization, click Settings.

  3. In the left sidebar, in the "Code, planning, and automation" section, click Repository, then click Rulesets.

    Screenshot of an organization's settings page. In the sidebar, a link labeled "Rulesets" is outlined in orange.

  4. Select the New ruleset dropdown, then click Import a ruleset.

    Screenshot of the page for repository rulesets. The "New ruleset" dropdown menu is expanded and the "Import a ruleset" option is outlined in orange.

  5. Open the exported JSON file.

  6. Review the imported ruleset and click Create.