GitHub launched new repository-level controls on August 27, 2026, giving maintainers the option to disable pull requests entirely, restrict submissions to collaborators, or cap concurrent open PRs from external contributors. Between early 2023 and March 2026, the platform’s monthly merged PR volume surged from roughly 25 million to 90 million, a 260% increase. In April 2026, an engineer using an autonomous coding agent submitted more than 130 pull requests across multiple repositories in just 72 hours, prompting GitHub to suspend the account. A study examining 1,000 repositories found that 118 had already established formal AI contribution policies, with 78% permitting AI-assisted work under conditions such as disclosure of AI tool usage and mandatory human review of AI-generated code.
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