pr-manager

A command-line tool written in Go for automating GitHub Pull Request review and merge workflows. It wraps the GitHub CLI (gh) to combine the approval and merge steps into a single, consistent command with safety checks built in.

Prerequisites

• GitHub CLI (gh) installed and authenticated
• Git — must be run from inside a git repository
• Go 1.21+ — only required if building from source

Authenticate with GitHub CLI

gh auth login

Select SSH when prompted to avoid repeated authentication prompts.

---

Installation

Linux / macOS — binary tarball (recommended)

Download the archive for your platform from the releases page, extract, and place the binary on your PATH.

# Linux amd64 — replace <version> with the tag you want, e.g. v2.0.0
curl -LO https://github.com/mayurathavale18/pr-manager/releases/download/<version>/pr-manager-<version>-linux-amd64.tar.gz
tar -xzf pr-manager-<version>-linux-amd64.tar.gz
sudo mv pr-manager /usr/local/bin/

# macOS Apple Silicon (arm64)
curl -LO https://github.com/mayurathavale18/pr-manager/releases/download/<version>/pr-manager-<version>-darwin-arm64.tar.gz
tar -xzf pr-manager-<version>-darwin-arm64.tar.gz
sudo mv pr-manager /usr/local/bin/

# Verify
pr-manager --version

Available platform archives:

File	Platform
pr-manager-<version>-linux-amd64.tar.gz	Linux x86-64
pr-manager-<version>-linux-arm64.tar.gz	Linux ARM64 (Raspberry Pi, AWS Graviton)
pr-manager-<version>-darwin-amd64.tar.gz	macOS Intel
pr-manager-<version>-darwin-arm64.tar.gz	macOS Apple Silicon
pr-manager-<version>-windows-amd64.zip	Windows x86-64

Debian / Ubuntu — .deb package

# amd64
curl -LO https://github.com/mayurathavale18/pr-manager/releases/download/<version>/pr-manager_<version>_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i pr-manager_<version>_amd64.deb
sudo apt-get install -f    # resolve any missing dependencies

# arm64
curl -LO https://github.com/mayurathavale18/pr-manager/releases/download/<version>/pr-manager_<version>_arm64.deb
sudo dpkg -i pr-manager_<version>_arm64.deb

# Verify
pr-manager --version

To uninstall:

sudo apt remove pr-manager

Windows

Download pr-manager-<version>-windows-amd64.zip from the releases page, extract the .exe, and add its directory to your PATH.

Verify download integrity

Every release includes a checksums.txt with SHA-256 hashes for all assets.

sha256sum -c checksums.txt

---

Building from source

Requires Go 1.21 or later.

git clone https://github.com/mayurathavale18/pr-manager.git
cd pr-manager

# Build for the current platform
make build              # output: dist/pr-manager

# Install to /usr/local/bin (or ~/.local/bin if not root)
make install

# Cross-compile for all supported platforms
make build-all          # output: dist/pr-manager-<os>-<arch>[.exe]

# Run tests
make test

# See all available targets
make help

---

Usage

pr-manager <command> <PR_NUMBER> [flags]

Commands

Command	Description
review <PR_NUMBER>	Approve the pull request
merge <PR_NUMBER>	Merge the pull request
full <PR_NUMBER>	Approve then merge (the default workflow)

Flags

Flag	Short	Default	Description
--auto	-a	false	Skip all interactive prompts (CI-friendly)
--verbose	-v	false	Print extra diagnostic output
--merge-method	-m	merge	Merge strategy: merge, squash, rebase, auto
--help	-h	—	Show help for a command
--version	—	—	Print version and exit

Examples

# Full workflow — approve then merge PR #42 interactively
pr-manager full 42

# Full workflow non-interactively (for CI/CD)
pr-manager full 42 --auto

# Approve only
pr-manager review 42

# Merge only with squash strategy
pr-manager merge 42 --merge-method squash

# Auto squash-merge with verbose output
pr-manager merge 42 --auto --merge-method squash --verbose

# Rebase merge without prompts
pr-manager merge 42 -a -m rebase

---

How it works

The full workflow (step by step)

Running pr-manager full 42 executes the following sequence:

1. Environment checks — confirms gh is installed, the working directory is a git repository, and gh auth status passes.
2. Fetch PR metadata — calls gh pr view 42 --json ... and maps the response to an internal PRInfo struct.
3. Guard: PR must be OPEN — if the PR is already merged or closed, the command exits with a clear error.
4. Check existing approvals — if an APPROVED review already exists, the approval step is skipped silently to prevent the GitHub "already approved" error.
5. Approve — calls gh pr review 42 --approve.
6. Intermediate prompt — unless --auto is set, asks "Proceed with merge?" so you can inspect CI status before merging.
7. Conflict check — if mergeable == CONFLICTING, exits with an error before attempting a merge that would fail.
8. Merge — calls gh pr merge 42 --<method> --delete-branch=false.

The review and merge commands run the same pre-flight checks independently, so they are also safe to call in isolation.

---

Project structure

pr-manager/
├── cmd/
│   └── pr-manager/
│       └── main.go               entry point; Version injected via -ldflags
├── internal/
│   ├── cli/
│   │   └── app.go                cobra command tree; the only place concrete types are wired
│   ├── config/
│   │   └── config.go             Options struct and merge-method constants
│   ├── executor/
│   │   └── executor.go           Executor interface + OSExecutor (os/exec wrapper)
│   ├── gh/
│   │   ├── models.go             PRInfo domain type, PRState, Mergeable constants
│   │   ├── interfaces.go         EnvironmentChecker, PRFetcher, PRReviewer, PRMerger, Client
│   │   └── client.go             GHClient — concrete implementation using the gh CLI
│   ├── commands/
│   │   ├── review.go             ReviewCommand.Execute()
│   │   ├── merge.go              MergeCommand.Execute()
│   │   └── full.go               FullCommand.Execute() — composes review + merge
│   └── output/
│       └── printer.go            Printer interface + ConsolePrinter (ANSI colours)
├── packaging/
│   └── debian/
│       └── DEBIAN/               control, postinst, prerm, postrm
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       └── release.yml           three-job CI: build, package-deb, release
├── go.mod
├── go.sum
├── Makefile
└── README.md

---

Architecture — SOLID principles

The codebase is structured so that every design decision maps to one of the five SOLID principles. If you are learning Go, this section explains both what was done and why.

S — Single Responsibility

Each type in internal/ has exactly one job:

• executor.OSExecutor — runs shell commands, nothing else.
• gh.GHClient — translates Go method calls into gh CLI invocations.
• commands.ReviewCommand — orchestrates the approval workflow.
• commands.MergeCommand — orchestrates the merge workflow.
• output.ConsolePrinter — the only place that knows about ANSI colour codes.

No type crosses these boundaries. If you want to change how colours work, you touch printer.go alone.

O — Open/Closed

FullCommand extends behaviour by composing ReviewCommand and MergeCommand logic without modifying either. Adding a future step — say, posting a Slack notification after a merge — means writing a new NotifyCommand and composing it inside FullCommand, not editing the existing commands.

L — Liskov Substitution

Every command accepts gh.Client and output.Printer as interface parameters. You can substitute GHClient with a mock, a REST-API-based client, or a dry-run client, and the commands work identically. The substitution is transparent.

I — Interface Segregation

gh.Client is defined as the composition of four small interfaces:

EnvironmentChecker  CheckGHInstalled, CheckGitRepo, CheckAuth
PRFetcher           GetPR
PRReviewer          IsAlreadyApproved, ApprovePR
PRMerger            MergePR

A command that only merges declares gh.PRMerger as its dependency, not the full Client. Tests mock only the methods they need.

D — Dependency Inversion

High-level commands depend on abstractions (interfaces), never on concrete types directly. The concrete types — executor.OSExecutor, gh.GHClient, output.ConsolePrinter — are instantiated in exactly one place: internal/cli/app.go. This is called the composition root. Swapping the real executor for a fake one in tests requires changing nothing in the command layer.

---

CI/CD — release pipeline

The release workflow (.github/workflows/release.yml) runs automatically when a version tag (v*) is pushed and produces the following assets:

Job	What it does
build	Cross-compiles for 5 platforms using a matrix; packages each as .tar.gz or .zip
package-deb	Compiles Linux binaries and wraps them in proper Debian packages for amd64 and arm64
release	Collects all artifacts, generates checksums.txt, and publishes a GitHub Release

To trigger a release:

git tag v2.1.0
git push origin v2.1.0

The pipeline uses CGO_ENABLED=0 and -trimpath to produce fully static, reproducible binaries with no external C dependencies.

---

Troubleshooting

gh not found

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install gh

# macOS
brew install gh

# Or follow https://cli.github.com/

Not authenticated

gh auth login
# Choose SSH for the authentication method

PR not found

Confirm you are inside the correct git repository and the PR number is valid:

gh pr view <PR_NUMBER>

Merge conflict

pr-manager detects conflicts before attempting a merge and exits with an error. Resolve the conflicts in the branch first, then re-run.

Broken .deb dependencies

sudo apt-get install -f

---

Contributing

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a feature branch off master.
3. Write your changes; run make test and make lint before committing.
4. Open a pull request against master.

---

License

MIT License — Copyright (c) 2024 Mayur Athavale