Hiya friends, Welcome to Main Branch, a weekly newsletter about the dev tools and features that shipped recently, with a focus on the fundamentals that help you work better every day.
I'm Andrea, a Senior Developer Advocate at GitHub. I spend my weeks talking to product teams, building demos, writing and streaming on GitHub’s Open Source Friday, Checkout, Podcast and other streams. This newsletter is where I cut through the noise and share what's worth your attention.
Yes, I'll cover AI stuff too. But fundamentals first. Always.
About Universe 2025. Every other DM I got after the keynote was some variation of "cool agents bro, but what about literally anything else?"
Look, I get it. Agent HQ is legitimately epic. But you know what's also useful? Being able to comment on unchanged lines in a PR. Faster Actions runners that don't drain your budget. The stuff you use 50 times a day.
These features didn't launch at Universe - they've been shipping quietly over the past few months while everyone was busy arguing about whether AI will replace us all. (Spoiler: it won't).
So here's what shipped recently that you might have missed.
🚢 What shipped
Comment anywhere in pull requests
The new "Files changed" page lets you comment on any line in any changed file, not just the changed lines plus three lines of context. Need to flag something that should have been changed but wasn't? Want to suggest improvements to code surrounding the changes? Now you can. Code reviews aren't just about what changed. Sometimes the best feedback is pointing out what needs to change in the untouched code nearby. The feature's in public preview - there's a toggle at the top of any PR's Files changed tab.
GitHub Actions performance upgrades
Three things Actions users have been begging for: Increased reusable workflow limits (up to 10 nested, 50 total calls), M2-powered macOS runners now GA (macos-latest-xlarge for Apple Silicon builds), and 1 vCPU Linux runners in preview for lightweight tasks. Not everything needs 4 cores to run npm install.
🎧 What I'm listening to
Acquired Podcast: Microsoft
Started this after Peter Attia randomly recommended it in his podcast (longevity → 10-hour tech deep dives, obviously). Just hit the part where Microsoft invented product-led growth in the 1980s. Give developers tools, make building easy, let them do your sales. Gates figured this out 40 years ago. Worth your time if you've ever wondered why "free tier → viral adoption → enterprise" feels inevitable. Listen on Acquired.fm
🔧 What I'm using
GitHub Projects onboarding improvements (import issues/PRs, default repos, workflow updates) – actually makes me want to use Projects now.
✨ This week
My in-laws just wrapped up a 3.5 week visit. I look forward to seeing them again, but I am also looking forward to spending 20 minutes home alone, sitting in complete silence 😉.
That's it for this week! No AI hype. Just features that help you ship.
Forward this to your team if it was useful, and reply to tell me what you want to read about next.
With gratitude, Andrea
P.S. Yes, I'll cover the AI stuff too. But fundamentals first. Always.