Mirrors the fix#2234 applied to auto-sync-main-to-staging.yml in the
reverse direction. Both workflows now use the same merge-queue path
that humans use; no special-case bypass.
Why
Every tick of auto-promote-staging.yml since main's branch protection
went stricter has been failing with:
remote: error: GH006: Protected branch update failed for refs/heads/main.
remote: - Required status checks "Analyze (go)", "Analyze (javascript-typescript)",
"Analyze (python)", "Canvas (Next.js)", "Detect changes",
"E2E API Smoke Test", "Platform (Go)", "Python Lint & Test",
and "Shellcheck (E2E scripts)" were not set by the expected
GitHub apps.
remote: - Changes must be made through a pull request.
The previous version did `git merge --ff-only origin/staging &&
git push origin main` directly. That works against a permissive
branch — it doesn't work against a ruleset that requires checks
satisfied by the expected GitHub apps. Only PR merges through the
queue produce check runs from the right apps.
Result was that today's 12+ merges to staging never propagated to
main; the auto-promote ran every tick and failed every tick, while
operators had to keep opening manual `staging → main` bridges.
Fix
- Replace the direct git push step with a step that opens (or reuses)
a PR base=main head=staging and enables auto-merge. The merge queue
lands it once gates are green on the merge_group ref.
- The PR's head IS the staging branch (no per-SHA promote branch
needed) — the whole purpose is "advance main to staging's tip".
- Add `pull-requests: write` permission so the workflow can call
gh pr create + gh pr merge --auto.
- Drop the `git merge-base --is-ancestor` divergence check — the
merge queue itself enforces branch protection now, and rejects
the PR if main has diverged from staging history.
Loop safety preserved: when this PR's merge lands on main, it
triggers auto-sync-main-to-staging.yml which opens a sync PR back
to staging. That sync PR's eventual merge is by GITHUB_TOKEN (the
merge queue) which doesn't trigger downstream workflow_run events
— so auto-promote-staging.yml does NOT re-fire from its own merge
landing.
Refs: #2234 (the parallel fix for auto-sync-main-to-staging.yml),
task #142, multiple failing runs visible in
https://github.com/Molecule-AI/molecule-core/actions/workflows/auto-promote-staging.yml
e45a5c98b0