Only 2 of 128 YC-backed dev tools companies block unchecked merges

Author here.

We scanned 128 YC-backed dev tools companies' public GitHub orgs on four rules: branch protection, required checks, CODEOWNERS, CI. Of the 44 companies that enable branch protection on most of their repos, only 2 also require a check before merging.

The structural finding is the 42 companies with branch protection but no required checks. Every PR opens, every PR can merge regardless of CI or review state. Apollo and Formance are the only exceptions.

Curious whether this matches what you see at your own org. Methodology and full leaderboard in the post.

This seems crazy to me. At bare minimum, checking that simple install, lint/format, test, and build commands work without error should always be required in any code repository. That is, if you care to maintain the repo whatsoever.