WordPress/gutenberg

Remove cherry-pick label on when workflow fails to perform a merge

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#76157 opened on Mar 4, 2026

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Good First Issue[Status] In Progress[Type] Build Tooling

Description

When a Backport to WP X.Y Beta/RC label is added to a PR, the cherry-pick-wp-release.yml workflow will attempt to perform a git cherry-pick automatically to the corresponding wp/X.Y branch.

When that process is successful, the label is removed and the Backported to WP Core label is added in its place. But when the process fails, no modification are made to the labels assigned to the pull request.

The label should have some combination of the following happen:

  • The label is removed.
  • A "Backport Failed' label added.

This would make it more apparent that a cherry-pick has failed, and easier to add the label again to retry (sometimes the cherry-pick fails because there were other related changes that needed to be merged in a specific order, a new attempt can be made after these are cherry-picked).

Contributor guide

Tech stack
github actions
Domain
ci cddevops
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
2
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
active
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of GitHub ActionsFamiliarity with YAML
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
75
Research direction
Look at the existing `.github/workflows/cherry pick wp release.yml` workflow. The current success path removes the cherry pick label and adds a backported label. The failure path needs to be handled: remove the cherry pick label and optionally add a 'Backport Failed' label. Check if there's a comment on the issue for additional context. To implement, add a conditional step after the cherry pick command that runs on failure, using `if: failure()` or similar, to update labels via the GitHub API.