# CIRCLE\_USERNAME not populated on squash merge with GH merge queues

**URL:** <https://discuss.circleci.com/t/circle-username-not-populated-on-squash-merge-with-gh-merge-queues/54255>\
**Category:** Build Environment\
**Created:** [December 1, 2025, 4:50pm UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/circle-username-not-populated-on-squash-merge-with-gh-merge-queues/54255 "2025-12-01T16:50:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wyardley](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/circleci/user_avatar/discuss.circleci.com/wyardley/32/19231_2.png) [@wyardley](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/wyardley)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2025, 4:50pm UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/circle-username-not-populated-on-squash-merge-with-gh-merge-queues/54255/1 "2025-12-01T16:50:50Z")

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With a gitflow type workflow on GitHub, it seems like `CIRCLE_USERNAME` doesn’t get populated on our default branch (which is getting squash merged into) on a specific project? For example, after a (squash) merge into `develop` in a more or less gitflow type setup, it seems to be unset (though on `main` / `master`, it _is_ set).

I checked another project with a simpler trunk-based workflow, and it seems to be behaving as I’d expect on the default branch, with the user authoring the merge commit showing up as `CIRCLE_USERNAME`.

I opened a support ticket, but wonder if there could be anything (setup workflows? multiple default branch build feature?) that is causing this issue for this specific project?

edit: Probably relevant side note: we are using merge queues.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![wyardley](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/circleci/user_avatar/discuss.circleci.com/wyardley/32/19231_2.png) [@wyardley](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/wyardley)\
**Post date:** [December 2, 2025, 4:40pm UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/circle-username-not-populated-on-squash-merge-with-gh-merge-queues/54255/2 "2025-12-02T16:40:51Z")

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Support confirmed that this is because of merge queues.

It would be nice if there were alternate ways to surface this information in the case of merge queues specifically. I am checking to see if the new Slack notifications feature rolling out this month will support notifying the author (vs. committer) somehow.