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Yes—you can open a pull request in your own GitHub repository and merge it yourself. GitHub’s pull request quickstart explicitly demonstrates that workflow. A pull request still needs two different branches: the branch with your changes and the branch you want to merge them into.
What a pull request does
A pull request proposes merging code changes from one branch into another. It gives you a place to inspect the proposed diff and, if useful, keep a discussion or decision record. It is not a requirement that someone else approve your work before you can open or merge it.
GitHub’s quickstart for pull requests uses a solo example: you open a PR in your own repository, then merge it yourself. The important distinction is between the person opening the PR and the branches being compared: the source and base branches must be different.
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When a solo PR is worth the steps
- You want to practice a team workflow. Use a topic branch, open the PR, inspect it, and merge it as you would in a collaborative project.
- You want a reviewable record. The PR keeps the proposed change visible as a diff and can preserve the reasoning or decision behind it.
- Your project uses checks or branch protection. A PR can fit the project’s existing checks-and-merge process; whether a specific rule applies depends on your repository settings.
When direct integration is simpler
For a small personal change, if you do not need a PR record, review practice, or checks before integration, merging the topic branch directly into the base branch can avoid extra steps. That is a workflow choice, not a GitHub restriction. The trade-off is that you skip the PR’s proposal and review stage.
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Solo PR workflow
- Create a topic branch from the base branch and make your changes there.
- Commit and push the topic branch to your repository.
- Open a pull request with the topic branch as the source and the intended destination branch as the base.
- Inspect the diff and any checks or comments you use for the project.
- Merge the PR when you are satisfied with the change.
GitHub’s documentation covers this branch-to-PR-to-merge path in its pull request quickstart. If you prefer the command line, GitHub CLI supports creating a pull request with gh pr create; see the GitHub CLI command reference.
Bottom line: “to myself” is allowed
You can open and merge a pull request in your own repository. Do it when the diff, record, checks, or practice are useful; for a change that needs none of those, a direct merge may be the leaner workflow.
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