Hi, there, Signal Android developer here. This is correct. Our process is that we work in a pre-release branch, and then merge that to master when we make a release. So GitHub doesn't usually recognize it as a merge, but we always keep the original authorship and whatnot.

You could include "Closes #123" or "Merges #123" or "Fixes #123" in the commit message of the merge commit, and GitHub will link it, and currently close it (it doesn't actually consider it merged, but it at least auto-closes and links)

Can’t you just change the merge target to the prerelease branch?

Maintainers can't. Only the PR owner can.

For that to work the PR owner has to know which branch to target (assuming it's public).

Unless the PR creator somehow knows which release their PR is going to be included in, with a guarantee it'll be merged in said release, then it's just not possible for the PR creator to target the correct branch.

It’s a bit undiscoverable, but if you click the edit title button it will actually allow you to edit the base branch as well. Sibiling comment said this might be opt-out-able, but at least in ms/vscode no one seems to opt-out.

> Maintainers can't. Only the PR owner can.

Just tried it, seems to work fine for me..?

When filing a PR there's a "allow maintainers to edit the PR" checkbox (I don't recall the exact wording). If the PR owner doesn't check it, the maintainer can't change the target branch.

Hey there, would be great if you reference these merges in the issues so it would be visible to everyone (and especially the devs who put in the work) that the code is used.

In one of the projects I was in, we did the same but then made a comment with the merged commit hash so that folks can check it out.

Ah, it turns out Github is the obnoxious one.