How to Dismiss Stale Reviews When New Commits Are Pushed

The dismiss stale reviews option removes existing approvals whenever new commits are pushed, forcing a fresh review of the latest code.

Enable "Dismiss stale pull request approvals when new commits are pushed" so an approval never applies to code the reviewer has not seen.

Steps

Enable "Require a pull request before merging".
Enable "Dismiss stale pull request approvals when new commits are pushed".
New commits then reset the approval count to zero.

Branch protection

Settings

Settings > Branches > main
  [x] Require a pull request before merging
      [x] Require approvals: 1
      [x] Dismiss stale pull request approvals when new commits are pushed

Gotchas

A pushed commit that only changes whitespace still dismisses approvals; batch review-ready changes.
Stale dismissal pairs well with the merge queue, which retests the exact commit that will merge.

Related guides

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