Checking if a branch is associated with an Open PR seems to not be working as intended? #3228

haaghe-nih · 2025-02-20T20:37:10Z

haaghe-nih
Feb 20, 2025

We are cleaning up our repos and the vast number of branches we have accumulated, so part of my script uses some custom logic to set the status of the branches found. The ones we care about are is it default, is it tied to an Open PR, is it ahead of Dev, or is it stale, in that order. Everything works great except for the Open PR check, it for whatever reason is pulling in PR's that are clearly marked as merged and closed in our GitHub Pull Request UI... Any ideas?

# Iterate through branches and gather info
for branch in branches:
    # Skip over a branch if it's related to Dependabot
    if "dependabot" in branch.name.lower():
        continue
    
    branch_name = branch.name
    commit = branch.commit # Gets latest commit info
    last_modified = None # Default
    status = "STALE" # Default to STALE if no conditions met
    
    # If a commit exists, get date of latest commit
    if commit and commit.committer:
        last_modified = commit.committer.last_modified_datetime
        if last_modified and last_modified.tzinfo:
            last_modified = last_modified.replace(tzinfo=None)  # Convert to naive datetime

    # Determine status of the branch
    if branch_name == repo.default_branch: # Check if Default branch
        status = "DEFAULT"
    elif repo.get_pulls(state="open", head=branch_name).totalCount > 0: # Check if branch belongs to an Open PR
        status = "OPEN PR"
    else: # Check if branch is ahead of Default branch
        comparison = repo.compare(repo.default_branch, branch_name)
        if comparison.ahead_by > 0:
            status = "AHEAD OF DEV"

    branch_data.append((branch_name, status, last_modified))

I also tried this logic instead, just in case, still didn't work and marked them as open:

elif repo.get_pulls(state="open", head=branch_name).totalCount > 0: # Check if branch belongs to an Open PR
  open_prs = repo.get_pulls(state="open", head=branch_name)
  for pr in open_prs:
      if pr.merged:  # If PR is merged, treat it as STALE
          print(f"Branch has a merged PR, marking as STALE: {branch_name}")
          status = "STALE"
          break
  else:
      # If no merged PR, consider it an OPEN PR
      print(f"Branch has an open PR: {branch_name}")
      status = "OPEN PR"

NOTE: In the meantime, I added a call directly to the GitHub API and queried the results that way. I'll include that snipped below in case anyone else comes across this issue:

  # Make API calls with authentication
  def make_github_api_call(url, repo_name=None):
      headers = {'Authorization': f'token {GITHUB_TOKEN}'}
      response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)
      
      # Debugging: log the status code and the response content
      if response.status_code != 200:
          error_message = f"Error: Unable to fetch data from GitHub API (status code: {response.status_code})"
          
          if repo_name:
              error_message += f" | Repo: {repo_name}"
          
          print(error_message)
          print(f"Response Content: {response.text}")
          return None
      return response.json()
  
  # Get open PRs for a specific branch in a repo
  def get_open_prs_for_branch(org_name, repo_name, branch_name):
      url = f"{BASE_URL}/repos/{org_name}/{repo_name}/pulls?state=open&head={org_name}:{branch_name}&per_page=100"
      prs = make_github_api_call(url, repo_name)
      
      # Return the count of open PRs for this specific branch
      return len(prs) if prs else 0

Rahulchaube1 · 2026-06-22T18:09:28Z

Rahulchaube1
Jun 22, 2026

The issue is with the head parameter format in repo.get_pulls(). When you pass just a branch name (e.g., "my-branch"), PyGithub/the GitHub API requires the format "owner:branch" (or "org:branch" for org repos) to correctly filter by head branch. Without the owner prefix, the filter may be silently ignored, causing the API to return all open PRs — not just those for that branch.

The Fix

# Wrong - may not filter correctly
prs = repo.get_pulls(state="open", head=branch_name)

# Correct - include the owner/org prefix
prs = repo.get_pulls(state="open", head=f"{repo.owner.login}:{branch_name}")

With this fix, the API only returns open PRs whose head branch matches owner:branch_name, which eliminates the false positives you're seeing.

Why you saw correct results with raw `requests`

In your working raw API call you likely had:

?state=open&head={org_name}:{branch_name}

— notice the org_name: prefix. PyGithub passes the head value directly to the API, so the prefix must be included explicitly.

Updated branch status check

def has_open_pr(repo, branch_name):
    head_filter = f"{repo.owner.login}:{branch_name}"
    prs = repo.get_pulls(state="open", head=head_filter)
    return prs.totalCount > 0  # totalCount avoids iterating

Using prs.totalCount > 0 is more efficient than iterating through results — it uses the count returned in the API response headers rather than fetching all PR objects.

Double-checking with state

If you still see unexpected results, you can add an explicit state check as a safeguard:

def has_open_pr(repo, branch_name):
    head_filter = f"{repo.owner.login}:{branch_name}"
    for pr in repo.get_pulls(state="open", head=head_filter):
        if pr.state == "open" and not pr.merged:
            return True
    return False

This double-checks that each returned PR is genuinely open and not merged, guarding against any edge cases.

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Checking if a branch is associated with an Open PR seems to not be working as intended? #3228

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Checking if a branch is associated with an Open PR seems to not be working as intended? #3228

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haaghe-nih Feb 20, 2025

NOTE: In the meantime, I added a call directly to the GitHub API and queried the results that way. I'll include that snipped below in case anyone else comes across this issue:

Replies: 1 comment

Uh oh!

Rahulchaube1 Jun 22, 2026

The Fix

Why you saw correct results with raw requests

Updated branch status check

Double-checking with state

haaghe-nih
Feb 20, 2025

Rahulchaube1
Jun 22, 2026

Why you saw correct results with raw `requests`