Code Owner Self-Merge

A GitHub Action that lets code owners merge PRs by leaving a comment — no admin required.

It uses the standardized structure of a CODEOWNERS file to determine who has merge rights over which files.

A simple example

With this file at CODEOWNERS or .github/CODEOWNERS:

README.md @your-username

If a PR contained only a change to README.md, this action would comment that @your-username has the ability to merge by commenting LGTM.

When that happens, the GitHub Action will merge the PR automatically.

Setting It Up

Create a workflow file at .github/workflows/codeowners-merge.yml:

name: Codeowners merging
on:
  pull_request_target: { types: [opened] }
  issue_comment: { types: [created] }
  pull_request_review: { types: [submitted] }

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Run Codeowners merge check
        uses: elementx-ai/code-owner-self-merge@main
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Security

We force the use of pull_request_target as a workflow event to ensure that someone cannot change the CODEOWNER files at the same time as having that change be used to validate if they can merge.

Issue / PR manipulation

Merging a PR has strict security requirements, but closing a PR or Issue can have a weaker one. Anyone with a GitHub login listed in the CODEOWNERS file has the ability to close any PR or Issue via a comment or review which includes:

@github-actions close

A closed PR can be re-opened with:

@github-actions reopen

Labels

You can set labels for specific sections of the codebase by using square brackets in CODEOWNERS entries:

packages/docs/es/**/*.md @your-username [translate] [es]

Config

Available inputs for the action:

• token — GitHub token to use for API calls (falls back to GITHUB_TOKEN env var)
• cwd — root folder to look for CODEOWNER files in
• merge_method — merge (default), squash, or rebase
• quiet — do not comment saying who can merge the PR
• ownerNoPings — list of usernames to wrap in an inline code block to prevent pinging
• if_no_maintainers_add_label — label to apply when no CODEOWNER covers the PR
• if_no_maintainers_assign — space-separated @username list to assign when no CODEOWNER covers the PR

- name: Run Codeowners merge check
  uses: elementx-ai/code-owner-self-merge@main
  env:
    GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
  with:
    merge_method: "squash"
    if_no_maintainers_add_label: "maintainers"
    if_no_maintainers_assign: "@your-username"

Dev

Run tests:

npm test

Build the distribution:

npm run build

The CI workflow (build-and-test.yaml) verifies that dist/index.mjs is up to date on every PR — run npm run build before pushing if you change index.ts.

Deploy

Use the GitHub UI to create a tag and release.