PR Guidelines
Best practices for creating effective pull requests and contribution guidelines for your GitHub projects.
Pull Request Guidelines
Pull Requests (PRs) are essential for collaborative development on GitHub. Well-structured PR guidelines help maintain code quality, improve review efficiency, and ensure smooth project collaboration.
Effective PR Guidelines
Establishing clear PR guidelines for your repository helps contributors understand expectations and streamlines the review process.
- Purpose/Description: What does this PR accomplish?
- Issue Reference: Link to related issues
- Changes Overview: Summary of key changes
- Testing Details: How the changes were tested
- Screenshots/Videos: Visual evidence (if applicable)
- Checklist: Standards that should be met
- Define how many reviewers are required
- Set expectations for review response time
- Outline criteria for approving PRs
- Explain how to request changes effectively
- Document required status checks or tests
Creating PR Templates
A PR template ensures contributors provide all necessary information to reviewers.
- Create a
.githubdirectory in your repository's root - Create a
PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.mdfile inside this directory - Add your desired template content following markdown syntax
- Commit and push the template to your repository
Here's a sample PR template:
## Description
<!-- Provide a brief description of the changes in this PR -->
## Related Issue
<!-- Link to the issue this PR resolves -->
Fixes #(issue)
## Type of change
- [ ] Bug fix
- [ ] New feature
- [ ] Documentation update
- [ ] Code refactoring
- [ ] Other (please describe):
## How Has This Been Tested?
<!-- Describe the tests you ran -->
## Screenshots (if applicable)
<!-- Add screenshots to help explain your changes -->
## Checklist
- [ ] My code follows the style guidelines of this project
- [ ] I have performed a self-review of my code
- [ ] I have commented my code, particularly in hard-to-understand areas
- [ ] I have made corresponding changes to the documentation
- [ ] My changes generate no new warnings
- [ ] I have added tests that prove my fix is effective or that my feature works
⚠️Caution
Templates should be comprehensive but not overwhelming. Focus on information that truly helps reviewers understand and evaluate the changes.
PR Size Best Practices
- Aim for less than 500 lines of changes when possible
- Focus on a single logical change per PR
- Break large features into smaller, sequential PRs
- Consider using feature flags for incomplete functionality
- Explain the reasoning behind implementation choices
- Link to design documents or discussions
- Highlight areas that may need special attention
- Provide context for non-obvious changes