How to cancel a pull request on github?

GitHub now supports closing a pull request

Basically, you need to do the following steps:

  1. Visit the pull request page
  2. Click on the pull request
  3. Click the "close pull request" button

Example (button on the very bottom):

github close pull request

This way the pull request gets closed (and ignored), without merging it.


If you sent a pull request on a repository where you don't have the rights to close it, you can delete the branch from where the pull request originated. That will cancel the pull request.


In the spirit of a DVCS (as in "Distributed"), you don't cancel something you have published:
Pull requests are essentially patches you have send (normally by email, here by GitHub webapp), and you wouldn't cancel an email either ;)

But since the GitHub Pull Request system also includes a discussion section, that would be there that you could voice your concern to the recipient of those changes, asking him/her to disregards 29 of your 30 commits.

Finally, remember:

  • a/ you have a preview section when making a pull request, allowing you to see the number of commits about to be included in it, and to review their diff.
  • b/ it is preferable to rebase the work you want to publish as pull request on top of the remote branch which will receive said work. Then you can make a pull request which could be safely applied in a fast forward manner by the recipient.

That being said, since January 2011 ("Refreshed Pull Request Discussions"), and mentioned in the answer above, you can close a pull request in the comments.
Look for that "Comment and Close" button at the bottom of the discussion page:

https://github-images.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/2011/pull-refresh.png