Development process

Step 4: Review process

Once your PR is submitted, the project's maintainers and other contributors may provide feedback. Be open to discussions and ready to make further adjustments based on their suggestions. To facilitate a smooth path to merging your PR, consider the following steps:

Responding to Feedback

  1. Review Feedback Promptly: Regularly check the PR for feedback from the project maintainers and other contributors. Timely responses show that you are committed to contributing and help keep the project moving forward.

  2. Engage in Discussions: If there are comments or questions about your changes, engage in the discussion. Provide clear, respectful responses to feedback and questions. If a comment requires a detailed explanation or a significant change, consider updating your PR with new commits that reflect these discussions.

  3. Make Necessary Changes: If the feedback involves making changes to your submitted code, update your branch with these changes. This may involve fixing bugs, refactoring code, or adding additional tests. After making the changes, push them to the same branch to automatically update the PR.

Ensuring PR Readiness

  1. PR Checklist: Many projects have a PR checklist in the description template. Ensure all items on this checklist are ticked off, indicating you have met all the necessary requirements, such as adding unit tests, documentation, or meeting coding standards.

  2. Continuous Integration (CI) Checks: Ensure that all automated CI checks, such as build, tests, and code quality checks, pass successfully. A 'Green' status indicates that your changes meet the project's automated validation standards and are less likely to introduce bugs or regressions.

  3. Approval Process: A PR should be approved by at least one other project member before it can be merged. This approval signifies that the code has been thoroughly reviewed and is considered good quality and in line with the project's goals.

  4. Resolve Conversations: Make sure all discussion threads in the PR comments are resolved. This could mean addressing any remaining issues pointed out by reviewers or coming to a consensus on any discussion points. Marking comments as 'Resolved' indicates that you have addressed the feedback or that a discussion has reached a satisfactory conclusion.

Final Steps Before Merging

  1. Update branch: Ensure your branch is up to date with the main branch. Only use git rebase if you know what is happening as it can cause bad side effects if done incorrectly. The safer approach is to Update the branch via the Github PR view.

  2. Final Review and Merge: Once all the above steps are completed, the maintainers will do a final review. If everything is in order, they will merge your PR into the main branch. Some projects may use automated tools to merge PRs once all criteria are met.

By actively engaging with the feedback process, fulfilling the checklist requirements, ensuring your PR is 'Green', and obtaining the necessary approvals, you significantly increase the chances of your contributions being seamlessly integrated into the project.