Implementing a Two⁠-⁠Step CI with Mergify

Split your CI into fast preliminary checks on every PR and full tests that run only before merging.

Step 1: Preliminary tests run on every PR push: linters, formatters, unit tests, basic compile checks. Fast feedback, cheap to run.

Step 2: Pre-merge tests run only when a PR enters the merge queue: integration tests, end-to-end tests, performance benchmarks. Thorough but expensive.

Enable batching to run pre-merge tests once for a group of PRs instead of per PR. For 5 PRs with a 30-minute pre-merge suite, that’s 30 minutes instead of 2.5 hours.

Run pre-merge tests only on merge queue branches. Mergify creates branches prefixed with mergify/merge-queue/ (customizable via queue_branch_prefix in queue_rules).

name: CI

on:
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  # STEP 1: Preliminary tests (runs on every PR)
  preliminary-tests:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - name: Run linters
      run: make lint
    - name: Run unit tests
      run: make test-unit

  # STEP 2: Pre-merge tests (runs only on merge queue branches)
  pre-merge-tests:
    if: startsWith(github.head_ref, 'mergify/merge-queue/')
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - name: Run integration tests
      run: make test-integration
    - name: Run E2E tests
      run: make test-e2e
    - name: Run performance benchmarks
      run: make benchmark

• CircleCI: Branch filter regex /^mergify\/merge-queue\/.*/
• Jenkins: Conditional execution on BRANCH_NAME
• GitLab CI: only: /^mergify\/merge-queue\/.*/

queue_rules:
  - name: default
    # PRs can enter the queue after preliminary tests pass
    queue_conditions:
      - check-success=preliminary-tests

    # PRs can merge only after pre-merge tests pass
    merge_conditions:
      - check-success=pre-merge-tests

queue_conditions gates entry into the queue; merge_conditions gates the final merge to main.