How to Revert Pull Request with Github CLI in Powershell

The aim of this page📝 is to explain how to revert a pull request on GitHub using the GitHub CLI and git based on the particular example of creating a PowerShell script to automate the process.

• NOTE: we’ll get gh pr revert soon that makes the script useless, subscribe to https://github.com/cli/cli/issues/6034 to be notified!
• NOTE#2: I am also not handling the navigation to the proper repo, that’s up to you
• A pull request is a way to propose changes to a codebase on GitHub.
• Once a pull request is merged, the changes are incorporated into the codebase.
• Sometimes, it may be necessary to revert the changes from a merged pull request.
• The GitHub CLI is a command-line tool that allows you to interact with GitHub from your terminal.
• The gh pr view command can be used to view information about a pull request, including the merge commit SHA.
• The git revert command can be used to create a new commit that reverts the changes from a specified commit.
• By combining these two commands, it is possible to revert a pull request using the GitHub CLI and git.
• In this example, we will create a PowerShell script that automates this process.

# Define the function
function revertPR {
    # Ask for input for pull request
    $pullRequestNumber = Read-Host -Prompt "Enter the pull request number to revert"

    # Check out a branch with name the name revert_<pull_request_to_revert>
    $branchName = "revert_$pullRequestNumber"
    git checkout -b $branchName

    # Get the SHA to revert with GH CLI
    $mergeCommitSHA = gh pr view $pullRequestNumber --json mergeCommit -q .mergeCommit.oid

    # Create a revert commit with git revert
    git revert -m 1 $mergeCommitSHA

    # Push that to remote
    git push --set-upstream origin $branchName

    # Create a new PR with GH CLI
    gh pr create --title "Revert PR #$pullRequestNumber" --body "This PR reverts the changes from PR #$pullRequestNumber"
}

# Call the function
revertPR

This script defines a function called revertPR that performs the following actions:

1. Asks for input for the pull request number to revert.
2. Checks out a new branch with the name revert_<pull_request_to_revert>.
3. Gets the merge commit SHA for the specified pull request using the gh pr view command.
4. Creates a new commit that reverts the changes from the specified pull request using git revert.
5. Pushes the new branch to the remote repository.
6. Creates a new pull request using the gh pr create command.

LINKS

• https://github.com/cli/cli/issues/6034
• https://cli.github.com/manual/gh_pr_revert