Describe the bug

I want to always enable auto-merge after filing a PR if it is supported by the repo.

However I never want to merge a PR without review, even if the repo hooks allow it.

Today if a PR has no pending required checks, the gh CLI merges it immediately, instead of enabling auto-merge.

Affected version

❯ gh version
gh version 2.96.0 (2026-07-02)
https://github.com/cli/cli/releases/tag/v2.96.0

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Run gh pr merge --auto
2. See that the PR is directly merged

Expected vs actual behavior

I wanted auto-merge to be enabled, or for the command to fail.