Cherry Pick Pull request

[rfsmart-btomblinson]

I have a scenario where I have 2 branches, main and a next release branch that both require pull requests. The process is there is a set of approvers that approve and merge to main and a different set of approvers for the next release(QA team). In TFS I had the ability after approving the first pull request to main to cherry pick the net changes and it would create the branch and pull request for the next release branch with just one click. I can use GitHub Desktop to do the process manually now, but wanted to know if there is a better way of doing this in GitHub, open to even using Actions is it is possible

[jheisonnovak]

Hi @rfsmart-btomblinson,

Yes, what you're aiming to do is definitely possible using GitHub Actions, and it's a common pattern in release workflows.

🔄 Scenario Recap

You want to:

• Merge a PR into main with one set of approvers.
• Then automatically cherry-pick those changes into a next-release branch.
• Create a new PR from next-release, with a different set of approvers (e.g., QA team).

✅ How to Achieve This

You can use GitHub Actions triggered on pull_request merge into main to:

1. Checkout the merged commit.
2. Create a new branch from next-release.
3. Cherry-pick the commit(s) from main.
4. Push the new branch.
5. Automatically create a PR targeting next-release.

This simulates the TFS behavior you mentioned, but fully automated.

🛠️ Tools & Actions to Use

• actions/checkout – to clone the repo.
• peter-evans/create-pull-request – to create the new PR.
• GitHub CLI (gh pr create) or REST API – optional for full control.
• git cherry-pick – to apply the commit(s).

⚙️ You can also add conditions to only run this for specific PR labels, authors, or paths if needed.

[rfsmart-btomblinson]

I used Copilot to generate an Action but having issues getting it to work, is there a sample that I can leverage?

[jheisonnovak]

Here's a minimal working example GitHub Action workflow that does exactly what you're trying to do:

name: Cherry-pick to next-release

on:
  pull_request:
    types: [closed]
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  cherry-pick:
    if: github.event.pull_request.merged == true
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Set up Git
        run: |
          git config user.name "github-actions[bot]"
          git config user.email "41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com"

      - name: Fetch all branches
        run: git fetch --all

      - name: Create cherry-pick branch
        run: |
          git checkout origin/next-release
          git checkout -b cherry-pick-${{ github.sha }}

      - name: Cherry-pick the merged commit
        run: |
          git cherry-pick -x ${{ github.sha }}

      - name: Push new branch
        run: |
          git push origin HEAD

      - name: Create pull request
        uses: peter-evans/create-pull-request@v6
        with:
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          title: "Cherry-pick ${{ github.sha }} into next-release"
          body: "Automated cherry-pick of #${{ github.event.pull_request.number }} into `next-release`"
          base: next-release
          branch: cherry-pick-${{ github.sha }}

What it does?

• Triggers when a PR is merged into main
• Checks out the next-release branch
• Cherry-picks the merged commit from main
• Pushes a new branch (e.g., cherry-pick-<sha>)
• Opens a PR into next-release for review

Common Pitfalls

1. Cherry-pick conflicts – if there's a merge commit or conflicting files, this workflow will fail. You can handle that via error handling or manual resolution.
2. Permissions – make sure your workflow has write access (Settings > Actions > General > Workflow permissions).
3. Multiple commits – this version assumes one commit from the PR (the merge commit). If you want to cherry-pick all commits from a PR, you'll need to script that (git log --pretty=format:%H ... | xargs -I {} git cherry-pick {}).