Request for `>GitHub Pull Requests: Forget Pull Request`

[DavisVaughan]

When I create a pull request, my workflow is typically:

• Create a branch, feature/foo
• Do work
• Create a pull request associated with feature/foo
• Get a review from a colleague
• Look at the review on GitHub
• Merge the pull request from GitHub

This leaves my local state in an awkward scenario. I need to:

• Switch to main
• Pull main
• Delete my feature/foo branch

I can do this manually, but this is such a common workflow of mine that I feel like a command for this is somehow missing. In R, we've created a suite of PR related helpers for this and the relevant one is usethis::pr_finish(), which does these exact steps.

The closest I can seem to get is:

• >GitHub Pull Requests: Checkout Default Branch
• With "githubPullRequests.postDone": "checkoutDefaultBranchAndPull"

(I'm not even 100% sure that a pull occurs when you use the command, but I think it does)

This accomplishes the first 2 bullets, but not the 3rd, so I have to go delete feature/foo myself.

I think I am missing something like

>GitHub Pull Requests: Forget Pull Request

Which has the purpose of:

• Checkout the default branch (subject to githubPullRequests.postDone so I can make it also pull)
• Delete the current branch you switched from

I would use this all the time if it existed as a way to cleanup after a merge via the GitHub UI.

---

I am aware of "githubPullRequests.deleteBranchAfterMerge": true. I do not believe that solves my problem because I almost exclusively merge via the GitHub UI, and it only works if I merge via the Extension UI.

---

It's also worth noting that if I checkout someone else's PR to perform a review, then it mostly works as I expect.

• Checkout colleague PR feature/bar using the GitHub Pull Request extension
• Leave my review
• Click Checkout Default Branch (with "githubPullRequests.postDone": "checkoutDefaultBranchAndPull" set)
• This auto deletes feature/bar for me

This workflow is quite nice! I want something similar for finishing off my own PRs.

Here is a video of me doing that workflow, which I do like:

Screen.Recording.2026-04-01.at.10.44.52.AM.mov

[DavisVaughan]

Interestingly what I think I want is related to this behavior in cleanupAfterPullRequest(). It already runs when you do Checkout Default Branch, it just skips cleaning up user branches.

vscode-pull-request-github/src/github/folderRepositoryManager.ts

Lines 1989 to 1992 in aa7eb41

	if (pullRequest.author.login === (await this.getCurrentUser()).login) {
	Logger.debug('Not cleaning up user\'s branch.', this.id);
	return;
	}

vscode-pull-request-github/src/commands.ts

Lines 887 to 903 in aa7eb41

	telemetry.sendTelemetryEvent('pr.exit', { fromDescription: fromDescriptionPage.toString() });
	return vscode.window.withProgress(
	{
	location: vscode.ProgressLocation.SourceControl,
	title: vscode.l10n.t('Exiting Pull Request'),
	},
	async () => {
	const branch = await pullRequestModel!.githubRepository.getDefaultBranch();
	const manager = reposManager.getManagerForIssueModel(pullRequestModel);
	if (manager) {
	const prBranch = manager.repository.state.HEAD?.name;
	await manager.checkoutDefaultBranch(branch, pullRequestModel);
	if (prBranch) {
	await manager.cleanupAfterPullRequest(prBranch, pullRequestModel!);
	}
	}

I definitely don't think I'd want Checkout Default Branch to always delete my user branch, but having the option to force it to do so post-PR merge seems useful, even if that's a long winded Checkout Default Branch and Delete Current Branch instead of Forget Pull Request