🛡️ Keep Your Project Safe with Rulesets

[ghostinhershell]

When you start a project on GitHub, it’s exciting to see your code come together. But as your project grows (or more people contribute), you’ll want to make sure nothing breaks your work by accident.

That’s where rulesets come in.

Think of them as guardrails for your repo, they protect important branches, help enforce reviews, and keep your project running smoothly.

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🛠️ How to Protect Your main Branch

Here’s how you can set up a ruleset in the GitHub UI to keep your main branch safe:

1. Go to your repo –> Settings –> Repositories –> Rulesets

In the left sidebar, under "Code and automation," click Rules, then click Rulesets.

2. Click New ruleset

3. Choose Branches as your target, and type main

4. From here, you can add rules like:

   • ✅ Require pull requests before merging

     • What it means: Nobody can push code directly to main. All changes must go through a PR.
     • Why it matters: Creates a review space, prevents surprise changes, and gives you a clean history of contributions.

   • ✅ Require at least 1 reviewer

     • What it means: A PR needs approval from another contributor before it can merge.
     • Why it matters: Catches mistakes, encourages collaboration, and ensures someone else has validated the work.

   • ✅ Require status checks (like tests) to pass

     • What it means: Automated checks (CI/CD, unit tests, linting) must succeed before merging.
     • Why it matters: Prevents broken code from reaching main and adds automated quality control.

   • 🚫 Block force pushes

     • What it means: Nobody can rewrite or delete history on main with a force push.
     • Why it matters: Protects against lost work, keeps your history intact, and ensures main remains your reliable source of truth.

Tip

To learn more about setting up Rulesets, check out our docs here: About Rulesets

5. Save it as Active

Now, your main branch is protected with strong guardrails.

---

⚡ Quickstart with Prebuilt Rulesets

Want to get started even faster? Check out GitHub’s ruleset-recipes repo. It’s full of ready-to-use rulesets that you can import with a few clicks:

1. Clone or download the ruleset-recipes repo.
2. In your GitHub repo, go to Settings –> Rules –> Rulesets.
3. Click New ruleset –> Import a ruleset.
4. Upload the JSON file from the recipe you like.
5. Review, tweak, and activate! It’s that easy!

These include patterns like:

• Branch protection with required PRs and conventional commits
• Tag rules enforcing semantic versioning
• Organization-wide best-practice rules

Use them as a template or inspiration to elevate your own project’s standards without reinventing the wheel.

---

🌟 Why This Matters

• Peace of mind: Your most important branches won’t be broken by accident.
• Consistency: Every contribution follows the same process.
• Security: You control who can push, review, or approve changes.
• Professionalism: Your project looks and feels like a well-run open source repo.

---

💬 Your Turn

What’s the first rule you would set up for your project: PR reviews, status checks, or blocking force pushes?

Drop your answer below 👇 and try setting up your first ruleset today.

[VictorMoni]

Thank you @ghostinhershell 😄👍

Thank you for putting this together! The explanation of rulesets and why they matter was very clear and practical. This will definitely help me improve my own projects. 🚀

[ghostinhershell]

Awesome! Thank you so much for reading @VictorMoni!!!

[VictorMoni]

You're welcome! Big thanks to the GitHub team as well 🙌

You’re always so collaborative and professional — it truly makes a difference for the whole community! 🚀

[Aarojas3012ArO]

When you start a project on GitHub, it’s exciting to see your code come together. But as your project grows (or more people contribute), you’ll want to make sure nothing breaks your work by accident.

That’s where rulesets come in.

Think of them as guardrails for your repo, they protect important branches, help enforce reviews, and keep your project running smoothly.

🛠️ How to Protect Your main Branch

Here’s how you can set up a ruleset in the GitHub UI to keep your main branch safe:

1. Go to your repo –> Settings –> Repositories –> Rulesets

In the left sidebar, under "Code and automation," click Rules, then click Rulesets. 2. Click **New ruleset** 3. Choose **Branches** as your target, and type `main` 4. From here, you can add rules like:

• ✅ Require pull requests before merging

  • What it means: Nobody can push code directly to main. All changes must go through a PR.
  • Why it matters: Creates a review space, prevents surprise changes, and gives you a clean history of contributions.

• ✅ Require at least 1 reviewer

  • What it means: A PR needs approval from another contributor before it can merge.
  • Why it matters: Catches mistakes, encourages collaboration, and ensures someone else has validated the work.

• ✅ Require status checks (like tests) to pass

  • What it means: Automated checks (CI/CD, unit tests, linting) must succeed before merging.
  • Why it matters: Prevents broken code from reaching main and adds automated quality control.

• 🚫 Block force pushes

  • What it means: Nobody can rewrite or delete history on main with a force push.
  • Why it matters: Protects against lost work, keeps your history intact, and ensures main remains your reliable source of truth.

Tip

To learn more about setting up Rulesets, check out our docs here: About Rulesets

5. Save it as Active

Now, your main branch is protected with strong guardrails.

⚡ Quickstart with Prebuilt Rulesets

Want to get started even faster? Check out GitHub’s ruleset-recipes repo. It’s full of ready-to-use rulesets that you can import with a few clicks:

1. Clone or download the ruleset-recipes repo.
2. In your GitHub repo, go to Settings –> Rules –> Rulesets.
3. Click New ruleset –> Import a ruleset.
4. Upload the JSON file from the recipe you like.
5. Review, tweak, and activate! It’s that easy!

These include patterns like:

• Branch protection with required PRs and conventional commits
• Tag rules enforcing semantic versioning
• Organization-wide best-practice rules

Use them as a template or inspiration to elevate your own project’s standards without reinventing the wheel.

🌟 Why This Matters

• Peace of mind: Your most important branches won’t be broken by accident.
• Consistency: Every contribution follows the same process.
• Security: You control who can push, review, or approve changes.
• Professionalism: Your project looks and feels like a well-run open source repo tow repotin