Update to Protected Branches API Preview

Over the past few months, we've made a few improvements to the way protected branches work in our web interface. Today, we're modifying the protected branches API preview period to include these improvements.

Included in these API changes is the ability to allow organizations to specify which members and teams should be able to push to a protected branch, as well as providing a new setting for required status checks which will remove the requirement of a pull request to be up to date before merging.

You'll notice a new endpoint structure. One set of endpoints for modifying the branch settings as a whole (PATCH /repos/:owner/:repo/branches/:branch has been updated to be PUT /repos/:owner/:repo/branches/:branch/protection), and a series of more granular endpoints to modify a subset of the branch protection settings.

This will be a breaking change for the protected branch API. The deprecated API endpoint will be removed when the protected branches API will leave the preview period. If you're trying out the old protected branches API, you'll need to update your code.

How can I try it?

To access this functionality during the preview period, you’ll need to provide the following custom media type in the Accept header:

application/vnd.github.loki-preview+json

Take a look at the docs here. If you have any questions, please get in touch.