Scheduling Freezes

Use freezes to coordinate:

• Critical release stabilization
• High-traffic events where deploy risk must be minimized
• End-of-quarter / audit windows
• Incident response (manual immediate freeze)

In the dashboard under Merge Protections → Freezes:

1. Click Schedule a Freeze

2. Define start / end (UTC)

3. Add matching conditions: by default the freeze applies to every pull requests, but you can limit its impact with this field

4. Save; active freezes appear in the list

During a freeze, the protection check fails with a clear message unless an override condition is met (see below).

Use the Freeze Merges Now action for immediate blocking. You can later unfreeze manually.

Create a rule with a success condition that grants override, e.g.:

- label != hotfix

Then apply the hotfix label (manually or via automation) to bypass the freeze for a specific PR.