# Enable auto-cancel but exclude branches

**URL:** <https://discuss.circleci.com/t/enable-auto-cancel-but-exclude-branches/54839>\
**Category:** Bug Reports\
**Tags:** circle-yml\
**Created:** [August 7, 2026, 9:30am UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/enable-auto-cancel-but-exclude-branches/54839 "2026-08-07T09:30:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![doughlass](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/circleci/user_avatar/discuss.circleci.com/doughlass/32/36043_2.png) [@doughlass](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/doughlass)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2026, 9:30am UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/enable-auto-cancel-but-exclude-branches/54839/1 "2026-08-07T09:30:53Z")

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CircleCI project settings allows you to toggle Auto-cancel redundancy workflows. It allows non-default branches auto-cancel when a newer build is triggered.

But in an edge case of ours, there is a project / repo which has multi-default branches which are country specific.

So for example, a repo has a branch called `be-us-dev` and another called `be-eu-dev` while `be-us-master` is the default.

It would be nice to have some sort of option alongside the toggle to state the default branches that we want protected from the auto-cancel feature.

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**Author:** ![viktoriyanavrotskaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/59ef9b/32.png) [@viktoriyanavrotskaya](https://discuss.circleci.com/u/viktoriyanavrotskaya)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2026, 6:12am UTC](https://discuss.circleci.com/t/enable-auto-cancel-but-exclude-branches/54839/2 "2026-08-10T06:12:15Z")

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This seems like a reasonable feature request. Auto-cancel is useful for active development branches, but repos with multiple long-lived branches need more control. A protected branch list or allowlist alongside the existing toggle would make the behavior much more flexible without removing the benefits of redundant workflow cancellation.