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Pull Request Reviews

Why we do reviews​

  • Reduce code churn and ship completed features faster
  • Reduce regressions
    • The better the pull request review, the less likely it is a regression will be introduced
  • Keep up code quality
  • Learn something new
    • Pull request reviews can be a great source of knowledge transfer
  • Provides useful documentation and history
    • Q&A or discussions that happen on pull requests serve as a good record for why certain decisions were made

Guidelines​

Pull Request - Creator​

Before creating the pull request​

  • Communicate often
    • When necessary, communicate often to clarify requirements, ensure there's agreement on implementation approach, etc
    • If requirements change during implementation, in Jira add a comment and update the title/description of the ticket
  • Write descriptive and consistent variable and function names
  • Tests - Update and create as necessary
  • Test your changes locally
  • Get pull requests up early in the sprint
    • Don't expect pull requests put up later than Tuesday morning before sprint end, to get reviewed in time to get merged before sprint end.
  • A PR opened late in the sprint, to improve your chances of merging, consider the following
    • Let the reviewer know as soon as possible that it won't be ready until the last minute.
    • Share a WIP as soon as possible.
    • Consider a live review.
    • Mentally prepare that it still may not happen.

When creating the pull request​

  • Clear title and description, following Git Commit Guidelines
  • Keep pull requests short
  • Add the reviewer and notify them on Slack
  • Ensure that the qa+ label is added to the Jira ticket if QA review is needed
  • Add Steps To Reproduce (STRs) for tickets requiring QA review and when it helps the reviewer test locally
  • Add screenshots for Frontend work
  • If necessary, inform impacted parties of the change. QA, FxA, RPs
  • Provide helpful notes, or provide non-obvious context
  • Add inline comments for areas you would like the reviewer to focus on

Pull Request - Reviewer​

  • Start the review within 8 hours of request
    • If you can't start the review within 8 hours, let the assignee know, and if needed help find another reviewer
  • Consider code complexity
    • Consider the following questions during review. Is the code overly complex? Can it be broken up into smaller, more reusable modules?
  • Test the changes locally
  • Be precise about your comments
  • Keep your Ego Out of Code Reviews
  • Direct communication
    • Consider scheduling a code review call, or discussing the pull request via Slack DM
    • Ensure to add important notes discussed on calls, back into the pull request
  • Do not provide style notes
    • Style notes should be enforced by the linter or style guide. If you would like to change a style, create a new pull request to update the linter or style guide
    • React style guide
    • Node style guide
  • Look for alternatives before adding new dependencies. Ideally we gravitate towards a fixed set of high level frameworks.
    • At the very least if a package is updated or added the version should be consistent across all workspaces.