What defines a good Pull Request?

November 15, 2023 ☼ GitHub ☼ process

As we work in bigger and bigger teams/projects is essential that we put more time and effort into crafting any PR.

PRs serve as a way for team members to review, discuss, and eventually merge changes into a codebase.

The below list is what I’d consider a “reviewable PR”.

The List

The below list might differ if the proposed changes are meant to address documentation or non-code related topic.

• Has a descriptive tile (this helps reviewers quickly understand the intent of the changes)
• Follows branch naming convention
• The description field contains (at least):
  • Link to backlog item or Issue or any relevant tool for tracking tickets
  • The reason for the suggested changes. Can be also a link to an ADR but better if explained in context
• Tests are included
• Pipeline is green (meaning all tests passed)
• Reviewers are assigned to it
• Small number of Lines of code (maximum of 200-400 LOC)

Small tips

1. Use Draft pull request if you are unsure of your approach and would like to gather an early feedback. It will avoid big change requests from the reviewers since you clarified a lot of things already.
2. Use plugins such as Git Diff Warning that helps you keep the PR small
3. Automate as much as possible
4. Have on-point commit messages
5. Add screenshots (if it makes sense)

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If you have any suggestions, questions, corrections or if you want to add anything please DM or tweet me: @zanonnicola