GitHub: How Pull Request Limits Are Reducing Noise in Open Source Projects
GitHub is introducing pull request limits that give maintainers control over the number of simultaneous proposals from external contributors. Since January 2023, the number of merged PRs has grown from 25 million to 90+ million per month — a 3.6× increase — which has overwhelmed many projects.
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GitHub Introduces Pull Request Limits for Maintainers
The pull request — a code change proposal that a maintainer reviews and accepts or rejects — has become a victim of its own success. GitHub is tracking explosive growth: in January 2023, around 25 million PRs were merged per month, whereas today that number exceeds 90 million — a 3.6× growth in just over two years. For active open source projects, this means an avalanche of proposals, many of which come from unknown users.
How the New Limiting System Works in Practice
The new option gives maintainers the right to set an upper limit on simultaneous open PRs per user who does not have write access to the repository. Trusted contributors can be added to a bypass list, and the limit does not apply to them. Draft PRs are intentionally excluded from the count — only finalized proposals are counted.
What GitHub Plans Next
This is only the first step. GitHub’s roadmap envisions the ability to archive pull requests and introduce similar limits for issues. The goal is to return control over contribution flow to maintainers without dampening community enthusiasm — balancing project openness with a sustainable review pace.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is a pull request limit on GitHub?
- It is a setting that limits how many open pull requests one user without write access can have in a repository simultaneously.
- Do draft PRs count toward the limit?
- No — draft pull requests are excluded from the count, and trusted contributors can be placed on a bypass list.