Direct vs PR push

quay push delivers a skill to the hub one of two ways. Which one is right depends on who reviews skills on that hub, not on taste.

	`pr` (default)	`direct`
Lands on	A `quay/<name>-<version>` branch, plus a PR	The hub's default branch (or `direct_branch`)
Visible to `quay add`	After someone merges	Immediately
Needs	`gh`, `glab` or `az` to open the PR — otherwise a compare URL is printed	Only `git`
Works on	GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps; Bitbucket via compare URL	Any git host
Protected branches	Fine	Rejected by the host

Use PR for a shared hub where a second pair of eyes on a skill matters — a skill is instructions your colleagues' agents will follow. Use direct for a personal hub, or a team hub whose policy is "trust, then revert".

Set it per remote

quay remote add mine git@gitlab.com:you/skills.git --push-mode direct
quay remote edit team --push-mode pr

Or in a profile: quay profile add … --remote hub=<url> --push-mode direct. The value is stored as push_mode on the remote.

Override it once

quay push csv-parse --push-mode direct
quay push csv-parse --push-mode pr      # remote says direct, this one wants review

Direct to a branch other than the default

Teams that integrate on develop can send direct pushes there:

quay remote edit team --push-mode direct --direct-branch develop
quay push csv-parse --direct-branch staging   # just this once

There is no push-time way back to the default branch: --direct-branch "" is the same as leaving the flag off, so the remote's direct_branch still wins. Clear it on the remote instead — quay remote edit team --direct-branch "".

If the branch doesn't exist on the hub yet, quay creates it from the default branch. --direct-branch is ignored when the push mode resolves to pr.

What you'll see

PR mode prints the branch and the PR URL — or, when no provider CLI is available, a URL to open the PR by hand. Direct mode prints the branch and a short commit SHA. --json reports either as one object with a mode field. Both are recorded in ~/.config/quay/push-log.json, which is how quay scan knows a skill was pushed.

Gotchas

direct_branch + quay add. Installs read whatever branch is configured as the remote's direct_branch. A skill pushed directly to develop is installable from develop — not from the default branch until someone merges.
remote edit edits the project config only. A remote that lives in a profile is changed with quay profile edit.
rebuild-registry honors the same push_mode (and takes --push-mode). remove --remote / --everywhere does not: it always pushes directly.