Issue Project Status changes to "QA Testing" if a pull request is merged in the dev branch

Overview

GitHub does not provide a built-in mechanism to update project statuses upon PR merges. This workflow solves that gap by:

Automatically updating the central GitHub Project status to "QA Testing" when a PR is merged into dev.

Ensuring that duplicate updates and comments are avoided for cleaner workflows, and it checks if the related issue in the PR body is Open or Close.

Adding a comment the same time as changing the status, only if the issue is open.

How It Works

• Detects merged pull requests into the dev branch.

• Identifies linked issues in the project.

If an issue is OPEN and not in QA Testing, the workflow:

• Updates its status → QA Testing.

• Adds a comment: Testing will be available in 15 minutes (triggered by PR #123)

If the issue is already in QA Testing, the workflow:

• Leaves the status unchanged.

• Adds a new comment for each new PR merged into dev.

• If a PR is merged into non-dev branches (e.g. master), no status change or comment is made.

• Open PRs (not merged) are ignored.

Prerequisites

Before you can start using this GitHub Action, you'll need to ensure you have the following:

1. A GitHub repository where you want to enable this action.
2. A GitHub project board (name: Requests Product Backlog) with a custom status field added.
3. A "QA Testing" status option added in the Status field.
4. A Token (Classic) with permissions to repo:*, write: org, read: org, read:user, user:email, project.
5. Yaml workflow running in the repository where you want to fetch all the merged pull requests.

Inputs

Input	Description
gh_token	The GitHub Token
project_number	The project number
status_field_name (optional)	The status field name. The default is Status
enterprise_github (optional)	True if you are using enterprise github and false if not. Default is False
repository_owner_type (optional)	The type of the repository owner (oragnization or user). Default is user
dry_run (optional)	True if you want to enable dry-run mode. Default is False

Examples

Status changes to "QA Testing" if PR is merged in the dev branch

To update the status of an issue to QA Testing, you'll need to create a GitHub Actions workflow in your repository. Below is an example of a workflow YAML file:

name: Update status field to QA Testing if PR is merged

# Runs every minute
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '* * * * *'
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  update_status_merged_pr:
    runs-on: self-hosted
    
    env:
      ACTIONS_RUNNER_DEBUG: 'true'
      ACTIONS_STEP_DEBUG: 'true'
    

    steps:
      # Checkout the code to be used by runner
      - name: Checkout code
        uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Check for merged PRs and change the status
        uses: emily-lambrou/[email protected]
        with:
          dry_run: ${{ vars.DRY_RUN }}           
          gh_token: ${{ secrets.GH_TOKEN }}      
          project_number: ${{ vars.PROJECT_NUMBER }} 
          project_title: 'Requests Product Backlog'
          enterprise_github: 'True'
          repository_owner_type: 'organization'