Mergepace
Help

All help pages

How to pause everything

Pause everything stops Mergepace, at once, in one repository:

  • nothing merges: Mergepace merges nothing, and can_merge answers "no" to every agent;
  • no agent is started;
  • no work is handed out: next_task and claim_task answer wait with the reason paused, so running agents stop at their next step. Their claims are kept.

Pull requests a person merges by hand on the code host aren't stopped: Mergepace's check keeps reporting as before, so nobody is locked out.

Pause

On the repository's Overview, pick when it ends under Until and press Pause everything:

  • Someone resumes it (the default): it lasts until an admin presses Resume;
  • 1 hour from now, Tonight, 22:00 or Tomorrow morning, 09:00 (in your time zone);
  • The date below: the date and time you pick, at most 90 days ahead.

A pause with an end resumes by itself then, and the Overview's activity says so.

If Mergepace can't read the repository's ID from the code host when you pause (everything holds then anyway), the pause is still saved, on the settings saved under the repository's name. If the repository turns out to have been deleted and replaced by a new one with the same name, that pause belongs to the old repository and doesn't carry over to the new one: pause again once Mergepace can read the ID.

Anyone with write access to the repository can pause. While it lasts, every page of the repository shows "Paused by <person> since <time>. Nothing merges or starts."

Resume, or change when it ends

Only the repository's admins can resume or change when a pause ends: they see Resume and Change when it ends on the banner. Keys never can.

Each pause, change and resume is in the repository's activity, with who did it.

From an agent or a script

With the connector, the pause_everything tool pauses (it never resumes). It always needs repo: it never picks the repository you used last. With the API, any key that works on the repository can pause:

curl -X POST https://mergepace.example.com/api/v1/pause \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $MERGEPACE_API_TOKEN" \
  -d '{"repo":"owner/name","until":"2026-11-09T09:00:00Z"}'

Leave out until to pause until someone resumes. The answer has paused and held: held is true whenever nothing merges, starts or is handed out, also while Mergepace can't read whether the repository is paused (for example while it can't read the repository's ID); text says why. POST /api/v1/resume with {"repo":"owner/name"} works only with the server's server-wide access key (whoever runs the server); keys get "Keys can't resume".

Pausing only starts

To stop only new agent starts and leave merging and hand-outs as they are, pause starts instead: POST /api/v1/launchers/pause-all (see the launchers reference), or pause one launcher.

Things a pause does not stop:

  • A scheduled task you made yourself on a platform still wakes up and uses your plan. Pause it on that platform too.
  • An organization-wide pause isn't there yet: pause each repository.

Next: How to read the Report.