Edit button is gone for non-committers for pull requests (workaround included)

[dramforever]

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Bug

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Non-committers (AFAICT) no longer see an "Edit" button in the top corner of the PR page next to "Code". As such it's no longer possible for non-committers to edit the PR title and base branch on the web interface.

This seems to have changed in the past few days or so (as of 2026-02-05), and it doesn't seem to be an intentional feature. No such required permission is mentioned in the documentation and no such permission is required when using the gh cli.

At NixOS/nixpkgs we regularly ask contributors to change their PR branch based on some criterion, and currently even have a bot notifying PR authors to do so based on automated checks. Having to ask for and/or wait for a committer do it is a major hassle for contributors. See: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#branch-conventions

Also reported on: https://www.reddit.com/r/github/comments/1qvmsvm/edit_button_on_prs_seems_to_have_disappeared/

Workarounds

(new 2026-02-06) On web, go to the Checks tab and the Edit button shows up. This applies to repositories with no checks as well, as long as the tab is there. (Reported by kisekiiro on Matrix.)

Also, the gh cli seems to still let you edit pull request titles and base branches:

$ gh pr --repo {owner}/{repo} edit {pr-number} # Interactively edit some parts, incl. title
$ gh pr --repo {owner}/{repo} edit --base {new-base} {pr-number}

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[w-lfchen]

another workaround is using the mobile app to edit the title

[ethancedwards8]

what a UI regression...

[yzhou216]

what a UI regression...

Probably LLM garbage...

[Srishti-j18]

+1

[lunaynx]

Agreed, this is incredibly frustrating, especially in projects that enforce pull request title standards. I hope it is fixed ASAP.

[jabr]

This bug started some time before Wednesday, Feb 4 at 11:56 PM PST when I first hit it. Very annoying bug, but thank you to those who found workarounds for now.

[SaTyle]

This appears to be a recent UI issue on GitHub where non-committers cannot see the “Edit” button on pull requests. Until GitHub fixes it, you can use these workarounds:

✅ Workarounds:

• Go to the Checks tab of the pull request — the Edit button is still visible there.

• Use the GitHub CLI to edit the PR:

  gh pr edit <pr-number> --title "New title"
  gh pr edit <pr-number> --base <new-base-branch>
  

• You can also edit the PR title from the GitHub mobile app.

Since this behavior is likely a bug, consider reporting it through GitHub Support or Product Feedback if it continues.

[w-lfchen]

this comment provides no value to the discussion. what is the point of posting it?

[salmanmkc]

I will share this internally

[salmanmkc]

update: I've made a fix, I don't work on this specific team, however hopefully it will be approved soon

[salmanmkc]

update: it should work now

[janbrasna]

And indeed it is working now! 💪 @salmanmkc Appreciate you taking care of this on the side for us, you rock! 🎸

[dramforever]

thank you for fixing this

[salmanmkc]

my pleasure, thanks for reporting it!

[barry-mcmillan]

Great to see it's fixed but the dropdown is not visible until the user clicks "Edit Title" which is unintuitive.

Please consider either:

• If the dropdown needs to be hidden by default, have an edit button after the base branch name
• Always show the dropdown

[dhiller]

As shared here users have reported they can not edit the subject of their own PRs in the KubeVirt org, but in other orgs they can.

[janbrasna]

This reproduces for different users in different orgs at different times.

E.g. last week first report came from an org member not seeing the button, while an OC still did. Now that button is gone even for them, and checking any other PR, submitted to both orgs and personal repos, the button is not there. — So this seems to break in waves apparently (staged deployment, regions, bundle caching in clients etc.)…

[Badatos]

Hello !
I have the same problem today in my project on Github : Edit Button has gone on all PR's, and displaying "Checks" tab does not shows it neither.

[dramforever]

I also think that's confusing. Maybe you can make a new discussion post about that.

[salmanmkc]

What's the desired behaviour? That you'd like it to keep the same button but just change the tooltip text to say 'Edit' instead of 'Edit title', would that be sufficient? Or a button near where it says the branch?

[dramforever]

I would appreciate a pencil button next to the base branch, something like here

This would IMO be an improvement over the old UI, making the option to change the base branch more discoverable

[yandevv]

Yeah, that sucks. I had to search to find out all that change.

[jwellbelove]

I've been changing the base branch on the gh CLI for two weeks now because I couldn't find the 'Edit' button.
It was not really discoverable at all. I never bothered clicking the 'pencil' icon because is said "Edit title".