BekahHW for OpenSauced

Posted on Apr 14, 2023 • Updated on Sep 21, 2023

How to Create a Good Pull Request Template (and Why You Should Add Gifs)

#opensource #webdev #github

I wasn’t in tech when Pull Requests (PRs) were first introduced by GitHub back in 2008. And when I graduated from bootcamp four years ago, I had probably created only a handful of PRs. I quickly learned how vital PRs were when I started my first job on a team though. And my appreciation for a good Pull Request has only increased as I spend more time as a maintainer.

The great things about Pull Requests are that they allow for collaboration between contributors and maintainers, offer an opportunity to communicate changes that have been made and why they are important, and the ability for maintainers to provide feedback. Because contributors come from different backgrounds, have varying degrees of experience, and speak different languages, sometimes creating good PRs can be tricky. But there are some ways to optimize the experience for everyone–including adding gifs.

How to Create a Pull Request Template

Maintainers can help to improve the experience for both reviewing Pull Requests and for contributors submitting them by creating a template.

I like to think of Pull Request templates as a kind of contributor onboarding. It helps to guide them through the process of writing a good pull request and communicating with the maintainers. Although good templates may vary according to different organizations, their standards, and their needs, there are some basic checklists that you can use to generate your own.

To create a PR template in GitHub, create a .github folder in the root of your repository and a file called PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md.

At OpenSauced, we used forem’s Pull Request template for inspiration for
our template.

You can use markdown to create your template, and include sections like:

What type of PR is this?
Description of the changes
Related Tickets & Documents
Mobile & Desktop Screenshots/Recordings
Tests
Documentation
Post-deployment tasks
What gif best describes this PR or how it makes you feel?

Let Them Add Gifs!

That last one might seem out of place to you, but it can actually make the PR experience more fun, engaging, and effective. Here's why:

Gifs can bridge language gaps and help contributors express themselves more clearly.
Gifs can showcase contributors' personalities and add a personal touch to the PR.
Gifs can increase engagement and make the review process more enjoyable for everyone.

How to add Gifs to Your PR

If you’re a contributor, you might be wondering, “What’s the easiest way to add a gif?” I use the GIFs for GitHub chrome extension. Once it’s installed, you’ve got a quick way to add all your favorite gifs to enhance that PR experience. Just search for the gif you want, and click it. You can even add a caption to describe the gif or explain how it relates to the PR 👏

You can read more about PRs with @Brian Douglas’ post on Tips for getting your Pull Request reviewed on GitHub. Or check out the hottest repos and how they handle PRs on OpenSauced hot repositories. And if you have tips for creating great pull requests, let us know in the comments below.

header image created using midjourney.

Top comments (33)

Vincent A. Cicirello • Apr 15 '23

Nice post. Might be worth mentioning where you explain how to create a template that if you put it in a repository named .github that it applies to all of the repositories that you own, and you only need to maintain it there.

Anyway, nice template. I've been considering making changes to mine and yours gave me some ideas.

Prakhar Tiwari • Oct 14 '23

Wow I didn't know that! Thanks

BekahHW • Apr 15 '23

I thought of adding that, but then decided I could do a whole post on that.

Jessica Wilkins • Apr 14 '23

I love this PR template.

I definitely want to use this for my open source projects and want to suggest it for the teams I am on

Thank you for sharing.

BekahHW • Apr 14 '23

Thanks, Jessica! Not gonna lie, OpenSauced's PR template is my favorite. I looked at a lot of other ones, but this my favorite.

TED Vortex (Teodor Eugen Duțulescu) • Apr 14 '23

have a dream of upgrading those templates from checkboxes to selects but never get to it in real life :<

BekahHW • Apr 14 '23

Why do you think selects will be better?

TED Vortex (Teodor Eugen Duțulescu) • Apr 15 '23

Humans are biased to the scanning effect of the first page of content, that is currently taken up by the options of the "type of pull request" selector being spread as checkbox options; this makes it difficult for them to scan the other important sections of the pull request template (description, related tickets, docs, etc)

Mike Lockhart • Apr 15 '23 • Edited

I use labels instead, for better scanning, and also selecting PRs for review by type using the labels.

This does need pointing out to contributors, though. You can add HTML comments to PR templates for instructions or guidance.

Jesse R Weigel • Apr 14 '23

That is an awesome cover photo! You could be an AI art prompt engineer!

BekahHW • Apr 14 '23

Hahahah. Thanks for generating it for me.

Jesse R Weigel • Apr 23 '23

You're welcome! Anytime!

Sergey Leschev • Apr 14 '23

Adding gifs to the template can also bring more engagement and make the review process more enjoyable. It's good to see that OpenSauced is using forem's template for inspiration.

Alexander Clemens • Sep 4 '23

Thanks @bekahhw for sharing and adding this to my open source project no to come back to in the furute to enhance or pull request template.

ReactJS Development Company • Apr 19 '23 • Edited

Great post, very informative and helpful for me as a Web developer beginner.

BekahHW • Apr 20 '23

Thanks for reading!

umeya kassim • Apr 16 '23

Nice content il consider adding it in my next personal project new repository.

BekahHW • Apr 16 '23

Awesome!

Jake Doran • Apr 15 '23

Great article! One of the things I miss the most about GitHub (my team use BitBucket currently) is the ability to create PR templates they are super handy!

BekahHW • Apr 15 '23

Yes! I love issue templates too.

Omar Kamel • Apr 15 '23

Gifs is a great idea 💡 that i would like to suggest to my team, thanks 🙏

Muhammad Raihan Satrio Putra Pamungkas • Apr 16 '23

Great explanation. However, I often struggle with providing an appropriate title message when submitting a pull request. I have noticed that many open source repositories have unstructured or messy title messages, which can make it difficult to maintain the repository.

Some people use problems or features as the title, while others add tags for additional information. I believe that it is important to consider the impact of clear and concise title message, as it can save a lot of time when searching.

BekahHW • Apr 16 '23

I’m writing a blog post about submitting your first PR. I’ll try to make sure I cover titles.

Bhupesh Varshney 👾 • Apr 18 '23

From the maintainer side, if anyone wants to spice up PRs

Bhupesh-V / memer-action

A GitHub Action for Programmer Memes xD

Memer Action

✨ Demo

❓ Usage

Example workflow

You can use the following workflow as it is, just copy/paste in a file named greetings.yml inside your workflows folder.
The reply action is performed by create-or-update-comment

name: Memer Workflow

on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  greeting:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@master
      - name: Run Memer Action
        id: memer

        uses: Bhupesh-V/memer-action@master
        with:
          filter: "new"

      - name: Check Outputs
        run: |
          echo "${{ steps.memer.outputs.meme }}"
          echo "${{ steps.memer.outputs.title }}"
          echo "${{ steps.memer.outputs.source }}"

      - name: Create comment
        uses: peter-evans/create-or-update-comment@v1.3.0
        id: couc
        with:
          issue-number: ${{ github.event.number }}
          body: |
            🎉🎉 Thanks for opening this PR/Issue 🤗
            Please wait while the maintainer(s) review it

            Meanwhile have a look at this 😝 :

            > **${{ steps.memer.outputs.title }}**
            ![meme](${{ steps.memer.outputs.meme }})
            <sub>ℹ️ <a href="${{ steps.memer.outputs.source }}">Source</a> [ Powered By 🔥 <a href="https://github.com/Bhupesh-V/memer-action">Memer Action</a> ]</sub>