Settings

Repository-level settings and merge options. Every field is optional; a field left unset is left unmanaged on the repo (not reset to a default). All the set fields batch into a single Repository.edit() call plus, when topics is set, one additional topics call.

Field	Type	Default	Notes
`description`	string	unmanaged
`homepage`	string	unmanaged
`private`	bool	unmanaged	Mutually exclusive with `visibility`
`visibility`	`public` \| `private` \| `internal`	unmanaged	Mutually exclusive with `private`; `internal` only for enterprise-org repos
`topics`	list[string]	unmanaged	Diffed and replaced via a separate call; order-insensitive
`has_issues`	bool	unmanaged
`has_wiki`	bool	unmanaged
`has_projects`	bool	unmanaged
`has_discussions`	bool	unmanaged
`default_branch`	string	unmanaged
`allow_squash_merge`	bool	unmanaged
`allow_merge_commit`	bool	unmanaged
`allow_rebase_merge`	bool	unmanaged
`allow_auto_merge`	bool	unmanaged
`delete_branch_on_merge`	bool	unmanaged
`allow_update_branch`	bool	unmanaged
`squash_merge_commit_title`	`PR_TITLE` \| `COMMIT_OR_PR_TITLE`	unmanaged	Required if `squash_merge_commit_message` is set
`squash_merge_commit_message`	`PR_BODY` \| `COMMIT_MESSAGES` \| `BLANK`	unmanaged
`merge_commit_title`	`PR_TITLE` \| `MERGE_MESSAGE`	unmanaged	Required if `merge_commit_message` is set
`merge_commit_message`	`PR_BODY` \| `PR_TITLE` \| `BLANK`	unmanaged
`web_commit_signoff_required`	bool	unmanaged
`is_template`	bool	unmanaged
`archived`	bool	unmanaged

settings:
  has_issues: true
  has_wiki: true
  has_projects: true
  allow_squash_merge: false
  allow_merge_commit: false
  allow_rebase_merge: true
  delete_branch_on_merge: true
  default_branch: main
  allow_auto_merge: true
  allow_update_branch: true

GitHub's API requires the *_title field in the same request whenever its *_message counterpart is set — even when the title's own value isn't changing — so the two are validated as a pair at config-load time: setting squash_merge_commit_message (or merge_commit_message) without its matching title is a config error, not a deferred API rejection.

visibility is mutually exclusive with private — setting both is a config-load error. It exists because private: bool can't express the third internal tier that repos in an enterprise organization have. internal is only valid for a repo owned by an enterprise organization; a personal-account repo can only be public or private, where private remains the natural choice.

topics is diffed separately from the rest of the section: GitHub's topics endpoint is its own call (replace_topics), compared order-insensitively against the repo's current topics, so reordering the list in config alone produces no change.