Add machete.github.retrieveByAuthor and machete.gitlab.retrieveByAuthor git config keys

[PawelLipski]

Based on PR #1784

Chain of upstream PRs as of 2026-09-17

• PR Rename get_open_pull_requests to get_all_open_pull_requests #1784:
  develop ← refactor/rename-get-all-open-pull-requests

  • PR Add machete.github.retrieveByAuthor and machete.gitlab.retrieveByAuthor git config keys #1746 (THIS ONE):
    refactor/rename-get-all-open-pull-requests ← feature/fetch-only-my-prs

Summary

• Add machete.github.retrieveByAuthor / machete.gitlab.retrieveByAuthor: when set, PR/MR-listing commands download open PRs/MRs by author (GitHub GraphQL search / GitLab author_username filter) instead of every open PR/MR in the repository.
• By default (and with --mine) that author is the current user; --by=<user> selects a different author, and chain reconstruction walks that author's PRs rather than the current user's.
• --all still downloads every open PR/MR regardless of the key.

This makes annotating and traversing one's own PRs feasible in repositories with hundreds or thousands of open PRs, at the cost of not discovering PRs opened by other users when traversing mixed-author chains.

Test plan

• Unit tests for checkout-prs/checkout-mrs with the key: --all, --by, --mine, and explicit PR/MR number
• Unit tests for update-pr-descriptions/update-mr-descriptions with the key: --related, --by, --all, --mine
• Unit tests for anno-prs/anno-mrs with the key (and missing current user on GitHub)
• Live-tested on VirtusLab/git-machete: anno-prs fetched only PawelLipski; checkout-prs --by=be-student fetched only be-student (no second PawelLipski fetch) and checked out Add advice setting for pull request creation from forks #1774/Reuse the resolved GitHub repository path after a redirect #1776; --mine fetched only PawelLipski

[codecov-commenter]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 98.66%. Comparing base (8dbf058) to head (ff7d0ca).

Additional details and impacted files

@@             Coverage Diff             @@
##           develop    #1746      +/-   ##
===========================================
- Coverage    98.66%   98.66%   -0.01%     
===========================================
  Files           45       45              
  Lines         5390     5458      +68     
  Branches       980      992      +12     
===========================================
+ Hits          5318     5385      +67     
  Misses          43       43              
- Partials        29       30       +1     

☔ View full report in Codecov by Harness.
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[sjbarag]

Thanks for implementing this @PawelLipski - it'll be super helpful for $dayjob use. Is there anything I can do to help this get closer to merging?

[PawelLipski]

Thanks for implementing this @PawelLipski - it'll be super helpful for $dayjob use. Is there anything I can do to help this get closer to merging?

For clarity, what's $dayjob here? 😅 are you a human? 🧐
Also, could you describe your specific case where this will be useful? I'm on the fence whether to actually add this feature 🤔

[sjbarag]

Thanks for implementing this @PawelLipski - it'll be super helpful for $dayjob use. Is there anything I can do to help this get closer to merging?

For clarity, what's $dayjob here? 😅 are you a human? 🧐 Also, could you describe your specific case where this will be useful? I'm on the fence whether to actually add this feature 🤔

Hehe, sorry, old-internet habits. I work at Netflix. The monorepo I do most of my work in has 932 PRs open right now¹, and git machete github anno-prs takes ~17 seconds. Not the end of the world, but a bit of a flow-breaker to wait that long. At peak, my open PR count was probably… 6? 10? 🤷

To be more specific: I'm using git machete for some manual PR stacking and as a running ledger of which PRs I've got open, which I've merged, etc. Obv gh pr list --author '@me' does that too, but machete makes the bulk-rebasing process easier. Especially for shallow PR trees (think 3-4 independent changes that can merge in any order).

All that's to say: a machete.github.retrieveOnlyMyPullRequests toggle would be nice, but I recognize it's edge-casey and maybe not worth the maintenance cost long-term!

Footnotes

1. Most of those PRs are old. I suspect listing PRs created in the last 30-60 days would cut the number of required pages to < 3, but haven't checked. ↩

[PawelLipski]

Okay! I'll probably get that shipped then - I'll use retrieveByAuthor key name instead (as we need to handle --by case cleanly as well - only retrieve PRs/MRs by that author)

[sjbarag]

Okay! I'll probably get that shipped then - I'll use retrieveByAuthor key name instead (as we need to handle --by case cleanly as well - only retrieve PRs/MRs by that author)

omgosh thanks so much! That makes sense to me :)

[PawelLipski]

@sjbarag merged, I'll get that released soon as v3.46.0 - pls test at your convenience

[sjbarag]

Will do! Thanks so much! 🙂

…

On Fri, Sep 18, 2026 at 6:53 AM Paweł Lipski ***@***.***> wrote: *PawelLipski* left a comment (VirtusLab/git-machete#1746) <#1746 (comment)> @sjbarag <https://github.com/sjbarag> merged, I'll get that released soon as v3.46.0 - pls test at your convenience — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1746?email_source=notifications&email_token=AAFCRL2PDHYEHWCVMJBR2C35PU46VA5CNFSNUABFM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2JONZXKZKDN5WW2ZLOOQXTKNZTGA4TSMJQHAZ2M4TFMFZW63VHNVSW45DJN5XKKZLWMVXHJLDGN5XXIZLSL5RWY2LDNM#issuecomment-5730991083>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAFCRLYDRCEXIN27KSWHN2T5PU46VAVCNFSNUABFKJSXA33TNF2G64TZHMYTEMRXGQZTCMBRHNEXG43VMU5TIOBTGE2DENJTGYYKC5QC> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[sjbarag]

Heya @PawelLipski! Just upgrade to 3.46.0 and tried out git machete github anno-prs --by=sbarag, and it seems to only be available in the checkout-prsandupdate-pr-descriptions` subcommands. Is that intentional?

When I set machete.github.retrieveByAuthor, I don't see a difference in wall-clock time either though 🤔 maybe I'm just doing something wrong?

[PawelLipski]

Hey, --by on anno-prs is intentional - that flag only exists on checkout-prs and update-pr-descriptions. With retrieveByAuthor enabled, anno-prs always fetches the current user (from the API token).

The other bit: machete.github.retrieveByAuthor is a boolean, not a login - so git -c machete.github.retrieveByAuthor=sbarag was silently treated as false, which is why the wall-clock time didn't change.

Try:

git -c machete.github.retrieveByAuthor=true machete github anno-prs

You should see Checking for open GitHub PRs by <your-github-login>... rather than Checking for open GitHub PRs...

I'll also ship a follow-up (#1791) so invalid boolean values fail loudly instead of being treated as false.

[sjbarag]

OH! Ohhhhhh that makes more sense. Confirmed working on my end, this is a massive time-save. Down from ~12s to ~1s 🤩

Thanks again!