New pull request overview page in public preview 🚀

[ebndev]

On a long pull request, checking what’s blocking often means scrolling past dozens of comments and timeline events just to reach the merge box. And once you’re there, you still need to work out what to do next. As people need to review more and more pull requests, time spent scrolling adds up. So we’ve begun to rethink the entire experience, beginning with addressing a familiar challenge: finding what’s blocking progress and determining what to do next.

Today, we’re introducing the Overview page as an opt-in public preview, with rollout continuing through the weekend. It brings merge status and next available actions to the top of the page in a compact readiness summary. It’s the first step toward making pull requests easier to follow as code, conversations, and reviews evolve.

The merge box, distilled

We’re starting with the merge box, the place developers go to see whether a pull request can move forward. Rather than just moving it higher, we’ve also redesigned it to show the same information in less than half the space.

1. Explore the supporting signals: A compact view of checks, comments, and approvals keeps the context nearby without making every detail compete for attention.
2. Address what’s blocking: Take action to move the pull request forward, such as updating your branch.
3. See if it’s ready to merge: Check merge readiness and merge when requirements are met.

Start with the summary, then follow the detail that matters to your next step (e.g., get to failing checks, see who still needs to approve, or open the relevant comments).

Keep your place. Focus your attention.

This first preview also introduces more ways to catch up on activity and focus the conversation so you can spend less time finding your place.

1. Narrow the conversation: Filter for unresolved conversations or comments you wrote to find open questions or follow up on your feedback.
2. Read the latest comments first: Sort comments from newest to oldest instead of starting with the earliest discussion.
3. Catch up on activity: Use the summary in the upper-right to find review comments, review requests, and other updates.

You can also mark a draft ready for review or close a pull request from the header, with available actions depending on your permissions.

Try the new overview

To join, select the ✨ Try the Overview page button in the header. We’re opening this preview early so you can try the new direction on your own pull requests and help shape what comes next. You can use the same menu to return to the classic overview during the preview.

🌟 Help shape what comes next

This preview is very much a starting point, not the finished pull request experience. Try it on your next pull request. What is easier to find? Where do you still lose context? What sends you back to the classic overview?

Join the discussion and leave feedback in the comments below!

[simon-abbott]

I have a few pieces of feedback, broken out here to be easier to respond to. I'd also be happy to split this into multiple comments if that would be easier to work with.

Firstly, I like the redesign of the merge box and moving it to the top. Being able to see the status at a glance without having to scroll, no matter how active the PR is, is a huge win.

On the other hand, I don't like the redesign of the rest of the page as much, for a few reasons. Here they are in order of least-to-most blocking for my workflow:

I find newest-first sorting really hard to read (I'm in full support of having it be an option, and thank you for letting us change it back, but I think it's an odd default).

The PR body is no longer in a box, which is weird. Every other comment on GitHub, including issues, discussions, and other comments on the redesigned overview, follows the same display format, including a background color and/or a border. The new borderless design of the description feels out of place, like it fell out of its box. I can work past this, but it does make the page harder for me to read quickly, which is the opposite of the stated design goals. I see this was resolved, thank you!

The review status icons on comments are hard to see. The old Conversation view had big prominent checks and Xs making it really easy to see at a glance. This new design makes them much smaller and easier to miss. Approvals, review requests, review comments, and regular comments all look the same except for a tiny badge next to the user's profile picture (which is easy to miss) and a changed label next to the date (which is also easy to miss). I would love to see that information get much more glanceable. Seems the review status icons being that small was a bug. I'd still like them to be even more prominent if possible, but I can at least see them now.

And finally the biggest issue for me is the split timelines. I use the activity timeline a lot to see what has actually happened to a PR since I last reviewed it, especially for force pushes, so having that information inline with the review and comment history is important to my workflow. Splitting them out means that now if I want to see what happened since I last reviewed I need to manually filter the activity list in my head. Additionally, there is no longer an easy link to view a force push's diff, which is a view I use extremely frequently due to our PR process.

[thaJeztah]

And finally the biggest issue for me is the split timelines. I use the activity timeline a lot to see what has actually happened to a PR since I last reviewed it, especially for force pushes, so having that information inline with the review and comment history is important to my workflow. Splitting them out means that now if I want to see what happened since I last reviewed I need to manually filter the activity list in my head. Additionally, there is no longer an easy link to view a force push's diff, which is a view I use extremely frequently due to our PR process.

Agree on this one; it's useful to be able to audit order of events; a PR was reviewed (and approved), after which the contributor (or a maintainer) may have done a rebase; it's common for the person performing those actions to leave a comment to explain the action done for future reference (and being able to "audit" the action after the fact).

While rebases / force pushes are most common, there's also other situations where context is relevant;

• "Rebased the PR after <other PR> was merged" or "Rebased the PR to get a fresh run of CI (no changes)"
• "Removed this from the XYZ milestone, because ...."
• "Added <needs-backport> label, because the XYZ release branch also needs this fix"
• "Added release-blocker label because this was a regression that must be fixed before we do the next release"
• "Closed/reopened the PR, because GitHub actions had an outage and didn't trigger all checks"

[simon-abbott]

@madsbolaris Are you officially affiliated with GitHub? Looking at your profile, you seem to be just a regular user.

@vivodi They belong to the Microsoft org, so seems pretty official to me.

[jsoref]

https://api.github.com/users/madsbolaris says they're a site_admin. So more than just "Microsoft org", but actually "github employee acknowledging fairly god-like powers".

[joehorsnell]

@madsbolaris - one other important thing I think is missing from the current overview preview is timeline mentions (e.g. "X mentioned this pull request in #456"), which are hidden by default on the Overview page.

I've added a top-level comment here with some suggested mockups: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/212186#discussioncomment-19516744

Overall though I think this change is good and brings together a lot of the important PR context to the top of the page.

[robrayjr]

'Notifications' section to subscribe to PR updates is completely missing in the new overview. This needs to be added!

[mungojam]

This looks like a great improvement. A related thing to that activity pane is on the notifications screen where a new notification for an existing PR doesn't give any indication of what's new, so when there are many notifications, I have no idea which ones have re-requested my review or tagged me in a new comment

[nayuta]

I would like to submit a suggestion regarding color accessibility. While the display appears sufficiently legible in dark mode, the thin bar in light mode may present contrast and readability issues. Adjusting the color or increasing the contrast ratio for light mode would greatly improve accessibility for all users.

[bmesuere]

I'm having the same issue. When multiple segments are shown it's ok because of the positional encoding, however I have difficulty seeing the difference between everything is pending and everything is green.

[renbaoshuo]

It seems that there is an error in styling?

[madsbolaris]

Yes, that looks like a bug. Thanks for reporting!

[srothgan]

very cool design, i really like it 👍

[chspe]

I don't like it.
I want to read the whole timeline and the comments, in order from oldest (top) to newest (bottom), before I click on "Merge" on the very bottom of the page.
I don't want to have to click to see timeline/merge box at all.

[baev]

Can we get rid of the scroll jump after approving a PR? In 90% of cases, my next action after clicking Approve is to merge, but the merge button is now at the top.

[mfsbo]

I would love if it can show the project fields like iteration and when they change on PR. We manage testing on PR so when it moves from swimlane to swimlane that is visible but other project fields are not.

[Szendvics]

Please keep the diff stat in a fixed position, independent of branch name length, so it's easier to compare stacked PR sizes.

[samuelfullerthomas]

I assume that this is progressively rolling out to users? I've not seen the Try the Overview page yet - keen to have a look 😃

[aryanranderiya]

same, am i missing something? i would really like to try this out

[madsbolaris]

Yes! We expect for it to be fully rolled out by Monday

[tomasz-pazdziurek-cko]

Would love to try it out as well. Do you know what "by Monday" means? Is it any specific timezone and / or exact time? 😁
All my teammates already have the new view available and I'm the only one being left out. 😅

EDIT 2026-11-10T08:15:00Z: Monday has finally come! (i.e. I can finally try the overview page) 🚀

[Cerbrus]

I just approved a PR made by a colleague, but the default "Unresolved" comment filter does not show said comment:

The "All" filter does show it:

I'd expect approval messages to be shown by default.

[frederikja163]

An approval is not an unresolved comment. Unresolved comments are comments on the code itself where no one has clicked "resolve"

[Cerbrus]

@frederikja163 I know... However, by default, the approval message is now hidden, because they're not "unresolved" comments.
Hence my request:

I'd expect approval messages to be shown by default.

If approval messages are hidden by default, then what's the point of having a text field there at all?

[frederikja163]

Ah makes sense. I think in most cases approval messages are just LGTM or something like that, but if they contain more important information it is more hidden now than it probably should be.

[gannett-ggreer]

I frequently will approve with a message of things that I would like to see changed but are optional, so hiding the message is definitely not appreciated.

[kubo6472]

no frame around the initial message

which check failed here?

[gromer]

Yeah, I also am not a fan of how that is worded. A check is in progress, but hasn't failed. I've seen the same thing:

Could say "Checks in progress" or "Checks running", and "Some non-required checks are [in progress/running]".

[hanneswernery]

Could say "Checks in progress" or "Checks running", and "Some non-required checks are [in progress/running]".

I second that. The title "Checks failing" is very misleading when some checks are simply in progress.
Other than that, I like the new UI.

[jinder]

It would be useful to be able to pin a comment to the top. There are often comments or bot feedback that get lost in the noise that are important top level content.

[shoowack]

I’d love a "back to top" button 😄 Both in the Overview and in the Changed files sections.

[nerdtronik]

I added one in a browser extension for all GH pages 😅, because why does this service with lots of timelines, logs, long files, doesn't have that already?

[ctsstc]

I see others with a chevron, I have a lock icon. It's a bit confusing.
I thought it might persist which would have been bad, but for me "locking" it to sit over the PR Body/description seems odd.

[kubo6472]

yes, the lock should move the PR text down, like a sticky thing

[emanuelen5]

I miss the keyboard shortcut Q which used to open the picker for adding a reviewer. It was so much quicker to just press Q and then type the name of the reviewer instead of having to click the gear icon and then switch to the keyboard again.

[jsoref]

Not sure if it's from this refresh or something else, but here I have 6 new suggested answers ⬇️ but I have the current newest answer selected, and the arrow is pointing down while I'm at the bottom of the view:

[joostlek]

I am a big fan of the new view. One thing I would like to see here is, the bar is red. This means it needs your attention because someone had comments. Now when I hover over it I don't see immediately who did that. balloob is the only one with a color, but he was only requested, and not the cause.

It'd be nice to see this quicker

[joostlek]

One thing that also bugs me a bit, codecov for us sometimes fires when you approve the PR. So that means you get sent back and you look up, and you find a tiny bit of yellow. Now I am kinda required to hover over it to verify its codecov, in which case I don't care.

In the past I could always see what was still going on before pressing merge without hovering over stuff. Not saying that I need/want to have it back, but now I feel obliged to hover more than I'd like

[nerdtronik]

I like the design of the new status bar on top of the description page, what I don't like is that to see the information the description gets hidden underneath. In my opinion you could use the empty left space we always have at the PR screen and put such container there, expanded and always visible as we scroll, to be that's a better UX than what's available now.

Also, can we keep the summary status + buttons always visible? I noticed when I have all approvals and the page is "checking" merge status, such header dissapears and I have to open the right sidebar to see what's going on.

[ForsakenHarmony]

a couple things I noticed that are worse than before:

• doesn’t show when a pr was merged in the timeline (can't tell if comments were left before or after?)
• conflicts or commits to main since it was opened are almost invisible (to me this is very relevant information)
• doesn’t show if the submitter is a member in the org / repo
• you need a lot of scrolling to get to the comments, maybe collapse the input field to reduce that?
• hierarchy reads very weird
  • why is the pr title at the top of the page twice?
  • when the sidebar is open there's a lot of duplication on the page and a things get squeezed

[cphillips83]

Branches with protection used to have a checkbox that let you bypass the merge requirements, I was unable to find this in the new UI. We use this for specific automated PRs that don't need to go through our normal review process.

Its possible I'm blind and was looking right at it.

[armujahid]

True, I had to disable that view to merge my PRs.

[tomdaly]

the new UI looks great! really like the new checkboxes when applying labels to an issue

one small issue I've seen is that if you have a lot of labels the UI moves around a lot when filtering:

Kapture.2026-11-10.at.18.57.48.mp4

[mrkev]

A lot off good feedback here; didn't have time to read through the whole thing so sorry in advance if what I have to say has been mentioned already.

I turned this preview off, my biggest gripe is that it's too many changes all at once. I bet most changes here are thoughtful and overall an improvement on the current state of things, but regardless of wether they are good or bad updates, this single toggle packs like a dozen meaningful changes that on their own I'd be able to digest, but as as an all-or-nothing package just become frustrating to get through.

I use github mostly for work. I have 3 projects going on, multiple stacks of PRs, meetings, design documents, figmas flying around, threads on threads on slack. I can get used to a button moving or enjoy a new useful panel at a time. A huge shift like this however will immediately feel daunting and unnecessary. I understand the appeal and how much easier it is to just build something new from zero as opposed to migrating things piecewise, but as it is right now this doesn't feel like a gift, it feels like a chore.

[gannett-ggreer]

I put this in the feedback box when disabling the preview but I'll add it here as well (with some editing and additions):

Failures of the new design:

• It is important to see all checks specifically that failed easily so a “5 failing” that causes a pop-out is not helpful and excessive friction. Even as a reviewer there's a big difference between "the linter failed" and "the build failed" and I need to be able to see that and click over to them easily.
• Additionally, the new comment box being at the top with reverse chronological event ordering is absolutely not how I want to read comments because it leads to zig-zag reading going up, reading down, scrolling up to next comment, reading down, etc. These are not social network posts; I want to read in a straight line.
• Someone earlier in this thread mentioned the "force-push" difference link is gone — that is essential to have for reviewing when the author keeps clean commits by amending.

The changes you should have done are:

1. All comments can be replied to in threads like code comments.
2. When someone resolves a comment thread it only hides it for themselves and others can see who considers it resolved and can flag it as “no, not resolved” for further attention from the person considering it resolved or can also agree by resolving it themselves.
3. “Request changes” should be able to be flagged on comment threads (instead of the PR as a whole) and noted at the top of the summary as “blockers”.
4. There should be a flag for reviewers to say “I want to block merging until I approve or clear my flag” without it implying that changes are requested. (Think of it like a “senior-staff check” or such for interested parties to sign off on.)
5. New commits should add comments to code review threads when the quoted code is modified, with a link to the code change.
6. Having a “here’s what changed in the PR since you last looked” (with a side-by-side of previous diff versus new diff) at the bottom (or more recent event location) would be fabulous because sometimes a file with many changes has one small edit done and then I have to remember what actually changed and what didn’t among the whole file. (Meaning having “Viewed” work on a “patch hunk” basis would be incredibly helpful.)
7. Dove-tailing with the “here’s what changed in the PR [code] since you last looked”, it is fine to hide all the prior (resolved) comments and events behind a "load previously-viewed" button, so long as any comment thread with new activity is presented. That'd keep the clean you look you want without giving me whiplash catching up or reading a busy PR for the first time.
8. The merge/summary box being at the top is fine, although I like to give a once-over to all the events/comments before I merge to make sure I didn't miss anything, so having one at the bottom might be handy, although perhaps the box at the top persisting in an abbreviated banner would suffice.

[fsoikin]

My favourite hotkey "Q" - for "assign reviewers" - doesn't work in the new UI.
There are probably other hotkeys that I haven't noticed yet, because they're not my favourite.

[Pablete1234]

I have mixed feelings about the change. Overall its good that we get more visual clarity and its a more compact overall "status", however, the flow seems... weird.

In the old flow you'd see the first comment, and the conversation top-to-bottom of what changes were asked for, and what new commits made them, and by the time you got to the bottom you had the merge button, and that was all. While the ui wasn't the best, but the "flow" made sense.
In the new one, getting the info at a glance is easier, but it feels counter intuitive if you prefer the oldest-first ordering you end up scrolling thru, but when you get to the bottom there's nothing, and you gotta scroll back up to the status to merge. Also the comments being just comments and not, for example, force pushes, seems off. I want to see all the activity as i used to.

On a separate avenue, the top-right "activity" sidebar element seems so redundant, why is number of commits, number of base changes or pr updates relevant? why is this information (in terms of number of them) shown at all? When those happened in relation to each of the comments is relevant, the number of them is not.

And lastly it feels odd that the initial comment, while it got back a little border, still doesn't really show who wrote it, its pretty visually separated who opened the pr from the initial comment, unlike before where it was pretty clear and together just like the rest of comments.

Maybe consider reworking the whole status such that it fits in the sidebar as pinned, leaving more space of the main page/content while still having that info?

[rakberdin-sf]

I don't like the activities taken out of the comment history. Seeing activity in the same timeline as comments helped give a lot of context to the conversation.

[OakBrille]

This is actually a good feature, i tried out today super helpful. Staying glued to see the feedback and future improvements.

[alewis-fisco]

The model picker seems to be missing when tagging @copilot.
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