Max­im­ising the Effect­ive­ness of Your Pull Requests

Improve Your Code Review Pro­cess and Boost Team Pro­ductiv­ity with effi­cient Pull Requests🚀

Pull requests are an integ­ral part of the soft­ware devel­op­ment pro­cess, allow­ing team mem­bers to review and col­lab­or­ate on code changes before they are merged into the main pro­ject. Not only do pull requests facil­it­ate code review and improve code qual­ity, but they also provide a way to track changes and ensure that every change is prop­erly doc­u­mented and accoun­ted for.

In this art­icle, we’ll dis­cuss five ways that can help cre­ate effect­ive pull requests and how we use these guidelines to help teams become more efficient.

By fol­low­ing these guidelines, you can improve your code review pro­cess and boost team productivity.

Whether you’re new to pull requests or an exper­i­enced developer, these tips will help you make the most of this power­ful tool.

Make sure the code is ready for review

Before sub­mit­ting your pull request for review, it’s import­ant to ensure that the code is ready for oth­ers to review. This means that you have done a first self-review to catch any obvi­ous errors or issues and that the code has been tested loc­ally to make sure it builds and func­tions as expected.

In addi­tion to test­ing the code, it’s also a good idea to include tests with your changes, if applic­able. This helps to ensure that the code is robust and main­tain­able, and it can save time dur­ing the review pro­cess by catch­ing any regres­sions or unex­pec­ted behavior.

Finally, make sure that the code is prop­erly format­ted and fol­lows the pro­ject or team con­ven­tions. Using tools like lin­ters and format­ting tools can help auto­mate this pro­cess and ensure that the code is con­sist­ent and easy to read. As we’ll dis­cuss in the next sec­tion, using tools to facil­it­ate the review pro­cess can greatly improve effi­ciency and make the pro­cess more enjoy­able for both the author and the reviewers.

Optim­iz­ing the Code Review Pro­cess with the Right Tools

Code review tools and auto­ma­tion tools can greatly improve the effi­ciency and effect­ive­ness of the review pro­cess. There are a vari­ety of tools avail­able to help with vari­ous aspects of the pro­cess, such as format­ting and lint­ing code, run­ning tests, and auto­mat­ing tasks.

Code format­ting tools, such as Pret­tier and ESLint, can help to ensure that the code is prop­erly format­ted and fol­lows style guidelines. These tools can be integ­rated with other tools, such as Husky, to auto­mate the format­ting pro­cess and ensure that the code is always prop­erly format­ted before it is committed.

In addi­tion to code format­ting tools, many other auto­ma­tion tools can help stream­line the review pro­cess. For example, you can use tools like Com­mitLint and Com­mit­izen to help enforce con­sist­ent and mean­ing­ful com­mit mes­sages. This can make it easier for review­ers to under­stand the changes being made and the reas­on­ing behind them.

There are also tools avail­able to make it easier to work with pull requests from the com­mand line, such as Git­Hub CLI and hub. Or, if you prefer a graph­ical user inter­face, you can use a tool like Tower or a plu­gin for your code editor or IDE, such as the Git­Hub plu­gin for Visual Stu­dio Code or the Git­Hub integ­ra­tion in Jet­Brains IDEs.

By using these types of tools, you can auto­mate many of the tasks involved in the review pro­cess and save time and effort for both the author and the reviewers.

Craft­ing Effect­ive Pull Request Descriptions

Writ­ing clear and con­cise descrip­tions for your pull requests is cru­cial to the suc­cess of the review pro­cess. A well-writ­ten descrip­tion helps review­ers under­stand the pur­pose and intent of the changes, and it can also make it easier to track and ref­er­ence the changes later on.

One way to ensure that your descrip­tions are clear and con­cise is to use tem­plates. Many code review plat­forms, such as Git­Hub, allow you to cre­ate tem­plates for pull request descrip­tions. This can save time and ensure that you include all the neces­sary inform­a­tion. Here is an example tem­plate that includes some key elements:

• Prob­lem: Describe the prob­lem that the changes are addressing.
• Solu­tion: Explain the approach taken to solve the problem.
• Test­ing: Describe how the changes were tested and how the fea­ture can be tested by reviewers.
• Import­ant notes: High­light any par­tic­u­larly import­ant or crit­ical parts of the changes that review­ers should be aware of.
• Links: Include rel­ev­ant links, such as links to Jira tick­ets or Con­flu­ence docs.

In addi­tion to using tem­plates, you can also use media to provide con­text and inform­a­tion for your pull request descrip­tions. For example, images such as screen­casts, GIFs, and videos can help demon­strate how the changes func­tion or high­light spe­cific parts of the code. There are many tools avail­able for cre­at­ing media for your pull request descrip­tions. While I use and recom­mend Clean­Shot X, there are also many great free altern­at­ive tools avail­able. Some examples include GIF Brew­ery for GIFs and Screen­cas­tify for screen­casts and videos. Just be aware of the size lim­it­a­tions for media that can be added to pull request descrip­tions on plat­forms like GitHub.

By fol­low­ing these guidelines and using tools to cre­ate clear and con­cise descrip­tions, you can make the review pro­cess more effi­cient and effective.

Keep pull requests small and focused

Large, com­plex pull requests can be dif­fi­cult to review and may intro­duce more errors. It’s gen­er­ally a good idea to break up large changes into smal­ler, more focused pull requests that are easier to review and understand.

Code Reviews
10 lines of code = 10 dis­cus­sions
1000 lines of code = LGTM

In addi­tion to being easier to review, smal­ler pull requests have sev­eral other bene­fits. For example, they are easier to revert if the worst hap­pens, and they allow you to gather feed­back more quickly. Smal­ler pull requests also make for a bet­ter change log and can help you come back to a point in time to debug a bug or under­stand the evol­u­tion of the product.

So, whenever pos­sible, try to keep your pull requests small and focused. This will make the review pro­cess more effi­cient and effect­ive, and it will ulti­mately res­ult in bet­ter code quality.

Col­lab­or­ate with reviewers

Effect­ive col­lab­or­a­tion with review­ers is an import­ant part of the review pro­cess. Enga­ging with review­ers and address­ing their com­ments and feed­back can help ensure that the changes being made are of the highest qual­ity and meet the needs of the project.

There are a few key things you can do to effect­ively col­lab­or­ate with reviewers:

• Respond to com­ments promptly: It’s import­ant to stay engaged with the review pro­cess and address com­ments and feed­back as soon as pos­sible. This helps keep the review pro­cess mov­ing and ensures that any issues are addressed on time.
• Ask for cla­ri­fic­a­tion when needed: If you’re not sure what a reviewer means or you need fur­ther inform­a­tion, don’t be afraid to ask for cla­ri­fic­a­tion. This can help you under­stand the issue bet­ter and address it more effectively.
• Be open to sug­ges­tions for improve­ment: Review­ers may have sug­ges­tions for how to improve the changes you’ve made. It’s import­ant to be open to these sug­ges­tions and con­sider them care­fully. While not every sug­ges­tion will be right for your pro­ject, being open to feed­back can help you cre­ate bet­ter code.
• Close open dis­cus­sions if they are no longer rel­ev­ant: If a dis­cus­sion is no longer rel­ev­ant or has been resolved, be sure to close it out and leave a com­ment acknow­ledging that the issue has been addressed. This is import­ant for main­tain­ing an organ­ised review pro­cess and avoid­ing unne­ces­sary back-and-forth.

In addi­tion to writ­ten com­ments, emoji reac­tions can be a use­ful way to provide feed­back on dis­cus­sions if words are unne­ces­sary. For example, you can use a thumbs-up reac­tion to show approval or a ques­tion mark reac­tion to show that you need clarification.

Con­clu­sion

In this art­icle, we covered a few steps for writ­ing effect­ive pull requests. We dis­cussed the import­ance of mak­ing sure the code is ready for review, using tools to facil­it­ate the review pro­cess, craft­ing clear and con­cise descrip­tions, keep­ing pull requests small and focused, and col­lab­or­at­ing with review­ers. By fol­low­ing these guidelines, you can improve your code review pro­cess and boost team productivity.

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