CODEOWNERS for different branches

[itsdarshan12]

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What article on docs.github.com is affected?

https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-cloud@latest/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/customizing-your-repository/about-code-owners#codeowners-file-location

in this link there is paragraph with says "you can assign different code owners for different branches".
While that's correct, it would be much clearer if an example was included. For instance, in a branching model like feature → dev → quality → main, each branch can have its own .github/CODEOWNERS file (e.g., * @team-dev in dev, * @team-quality in quality, etc.). GitHub uses the CODEOWNERS file from the base branch of a pull request to trigger review requests, so a PR targeting quality will use the quality branch’s CODEOWNERS. Adding this example would help users understand how to apply CODEOWNERS across multiple environments and protected branches more effectively.

What part(s) of the article would you like to see updated?

The part that should be updated is the sentence: "You can assign different code owners for different branches." in the CODEOWNERS documentation.

I suggest adding a real-world example to clarify how this works across multiple branches. For example: in a setup like feature → dev → quality → main, each branch can have its own .github/CODEOWNERS file — * @team-dev in dev, * @team-quality in quality, and * @team-main in main.

When a pull request is raised, GitHub uses the CODEOWNERS file from the base branch of the PR to determine review requests — so a PR into quality triggers reviewers from quality's CODEOWNERS.

This update would help users managing protected branches or using GitFlow-like environments understand how to structure review responsibilities properly.

It supports practical use cases where different teams are responsible for reviewing different stages of code, and avoids confusion around how CODEOWNERS behave during PRs.

The expected result is that users will better understand how to apply CODEOWNERS across branches and use GitHub’s review automation more effectively.

Additional information

No response

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[Sharra-writes]

@itsdarshan12 Thanks for opening an issue! I doubt we're going to do this right now in that particular article. We're at the beginning of a docs reorganization in which we're trying to make articles shorter and more to the point, especially "about" articles, which should be an overview of the subject and light on specifics. However, this does seem like a useful example to have somewhere, and may be better spun off into a new article that does go into specifics. I'm going to check in with the rest of the team to see if this issue would be better left open or made internal, or if we just need to put it aside for now because we don't have the bandwidth.