Maintainers of open source repositories are dealing with an ever-growing volume of pull requests, including repeated low-quality or drive-by contributions that can slow triage and overwhelm review queues. To help manage this, you can now set a maximum number of open pull requests that users without write access may have open in your repository at one time, giving you a more proactive way to manage contribution volume.

If a user without write access reaches the limit, they’ll need to close or merge an existing pull request before opening another one. You can also add trusted contributors to a bypass list, allowing them to exceed the limit without being granted full collaborator access. Draft pull requests do not count towards a user’s limit.

This update can help reduce noise in busy repositories, lower unnecessary review and CI overhead, and make it easier for maintainers to focus on high-signal contributions from their community.

Leave a comment in our Community discussion with any questions or feedback.