Branch Protection and PR Workflow

Branch protection rules enforce required approvals and checks before code merges into critical branches. You can require pull request reviews, enforce that specified status checks pass before merging, and restrict which users or teams can push to the branch. These rules interact with the pull request workflow: a pull request cannot be merged until all mandatory reviews are completed and every required status check (such as a CI build or security scan) reports success. This protects the branch from unauthorized or unverified changes and ensures that only code meeting the team's standards reaches the main branch.