Peak merge day shifted from Monday (19%) to Wednesday (23.5%). The workweek rhythm has changed.
Wednesday Merges
189,096 PRs
Based on 802,979 merged PRs | GitHub Archive / BigQuery | October 2025
In 2024, Monday was king. 19% of all PRs merged on Monday—more than any other day. Engineers cleared their review queues first thing after the weekend.
In 2025? Wednesday took the crown. 23.5% of PRs now merge mid-week, a remarkable shift in how software ships.
2024 Peak
Monday
Monday at 19%
2025 Peak
Wednesday
Wednesday at 23.5%
"Wednesday is the new Monday: 23.5% of PRs now merge mid-week, shifting from the traditional Monday peak."
The full picture shows Wednesday pulling ahead, while the other weekdays cluster together. The weekend still accounts for 21.5% of all merges.
| Day | PRs Merged | % of Total |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 111,703 | 13.91% |
| Tuesday | 115,098 | 14.33% |
| WednesdayPeak | 189,096 | 23.55% |
| Thursday | 109,198 | 13.6% |
| Friday | 105,311 | 13.12% |
| Saturday | 88,246 | 10.99% |
| Sunday | 84,327 | 10.5% |
The shift from Monday to Wednesday tells a story about how modern software development has evolved. Several factors likely contribute:
With distributed teams spanning time zones, synchronous Monday merges make less sense. Mid-week gives everyone a chance to review, regardless of where they're located.
More teams work asynchronously now. PRs opened Monday get reviewed Tuesday, discussed Wednesday morning, and merged Wednesday afternoon. The cycle naturally centers on mid-week.
The median time for reviewed PRs is 3 hours. If teams start PRs Monday or Tuesday, the review cycle naturally completes mid-week.
Many companies now designate Wednesday as a "no-meeting" or "deep work" day. Without meetings, engineers have time to finalize reviews and merge pending PRs.
The old adage "Don't deploy on Friday" still holds. Friday accounts for just 13.12% of merges—less than every other weekday.
Even with improved CI/CD, feature flags, and rollback capabilities, teams still avoid Friday merges. The instinct to not deploy before the weekend remains strong.
"Friday is still the lowest weekday for merges at 13.12%—even with feature flags."
Ship when ready, not by calendar. But understand your rhythm.
The Wednesday shift isn't inherently good or bad—it reflects how modern async teams work. What matters is whether your team's rhythm is intentional or accidental. If 23% of your code merges on one day, that's a lot of risk concentrated in a 24-hour window.
Consider: Does your on-call coverage match your merge patterns? Are your Wednesday deployments getting the same scrutiny as Monday's used to? The workweek has changed—make sure your processes have too.
Combined, Saturday and Sunday account for 21.5% of all merges. That's over 170,000 PRs in our dataset shipping on weekends.
10.5%
84,327 PRs merged
10.99%
88,246 PRs merged
Sunday slightly edges out Saturday, possibly due to global teams where Sunday is a workday in some regions, or engineers preparing for Monday morning.
This analysis is based on 802,979 merged pull requests from GitHub Archive / BigQuery during October 2025. Merge day is determined by the UTC timestamp of the merge event. Year-over-year comparison uses December 2024 data from our previous study. For full methodology, see the complete study.
CodePulse shows you when your team ships code and whether your processes match your rhythm.