During the last branch cleanup, it appears I accidentally deleted the release-2.26.0 branch.
Lukasz Cwik pointed this out to me, and fortunately I was able to recover and push it back to the repo. However, Brian Hulette then pointed out github lets us set up rules to avoid accidental deletion of branches that match certain names. https://docs.github.com/en/github/administering-a-repository/defining-the-mergeability-of-pull-requests/managing-a-branch-protection-rule So the proposal is we guard our release branches from accidental deletion using this mechanism. A repo admin (which I think is probably a PMC member?) can do so by following the linked instructions. My only note is that setting up such a rule sets the protection by default, and there shouldn't be any need to select other options (except at the PMC's discretion). Unless there's an objection (in the traditional ~3 day period), could a volunteer PMC set up such a protection rule, and prevent my error from recurring? Cheers Robert Burke Beam Go Busybody.