Branch Protection: "Restrict branch creation" implies just a user-check but applies other checks too

[vpanta]

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Bug

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While this might not be a bug, it's definitely an unclear expectation in the UI.

We found that when we enabled Restrict pushes that create matching branches (above), it also began enforcing Require linear history on the branch creations as well.

This was unexpected, as the extra description notes Only people, teams, or apps allowed to push will be able to create new branches matching this rule.. Also, this option is nested under Restrict who can push to matching branches option, implying the only affect is to restrict who can create the branch, not what contents the created branch has.

Note: We hit this issue because we cut release branches from our main. We want to ensure only a certain set of users can create and update these branches. However while we want to require linear history for later pushes to these branches (cherry-picks, etc), our main branch already contains legacy merge commits. By enabling the Restrict pushes that create matching branches, it meant that no one except an administrator could create the initial branch as they could force past the "linear history" check.

I don't know if this is intended and poorly described, or an actual bug. But I wanted to raise it either way.

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