Introducing the Codespaces Simple Browser

Preview Changes in Your Web Editor

Have you ever launched an application in your codespace only for the running application to get lost in a sea of browser tabs? Today we're announcing the ability to preview your running application directly in your web editor.

Update your Preview URL

Supporting this feature required a change to the URL of previewed applications from -.githubpreview.dev to -.preview.app.github.dev. This is potentially a breaking change. If you rely on a .githubpreview.dev preview url in any project you will need to update your code to reflect the new URL format.

Alternatively, the environment variable GITHUB_CODESPACES_PORT_FORWARDING_DOMAIN gives you access to the domain that your application will forward to. This will enable you to code in this variable anywhere you have hard-coded the preview URL.

GitHub Actions: larger hosted runners are now automatically created for customers

Starting today, customers can now enjoy larger runners without any pre-configuration work. GitHub now automatically creates a default runner group configured with four larger runners of our most popular sizes so users can start using larger runners right away.

The default runner group is called "Default Larger Runners" and can be managed by Organization or Enterprise admins. To begin using these runners, simply add the label corresponding to the runner of your choice to your workflow file.

Description Label Image
4-cores Ubuntu Runner ubuntu-latest-4-cores Ubuntu – Latest
8-cores Ubuntu Runner ubuntu-latest-8-cores Ubuntu – Latest
16-cores Ubuntu Runner ubuntu-latest-16-cores Ubuntu – Latest
8-cores Windows Runner windows-latest-8-cores Windows Server – Latest

Note that this change only applies to customers who are onboarded to the beta on October 20, 2022 and later.

Interested in learning more about larger hosted runners? Read the announcement here or sign up for the beta here

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New Branch Protections: Last Pusher and Locked Branch

Today we're releasing two new branch protections.

Require approval from someone other than the last pusher

Now, before a pull request can be merged, you can require it to be approved by someone other than the last pusher.
Meaning, the most recent user to push their changes will need a pull request approval regardless of the Require approvals branch protection. Or in the case of 1 approval required, someone other than the last user to push their changes will also need to approve. If the approvals come from other folks than the last pusher, those two approvals will be sufficient.

Screenshot of Last Push protection enabled.

Lock branch

This allows for branches to be locked, prohibiting changes. You can lock a branch allowing you to have a maintenance window and prevent changes, or to protect a fork so it only receives changes from its upstream repository.

To use this feature in a branch protection rule, enable Lock branch.

Screenshot of Lock branch with fork sync enabled

For more information, read About protected branches in the GitHub documentation.

We appreciate feedback on this and other topics in GitHub's public feedback discussions.

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