Creating Pull Requests

This guide walks you through the process of creating a pull request (PR) at THiNK. For more context, see our Version Control Guide and Code Review Guide.

Prerequisites

• Your code is committed to a feature branch
• Your changes are pushed to GitHub
• You’ve run all required tests locally

Steps to Create a PR

1. From GitHub Web Interface

1. Go to the repository on GitHub
2. Click the “Pull requests” tab
3. Click the green “New pull request” button
4. Select your feature branch as the “compare” branch
5. Click “Create pull request”

2. From VSCode

1. Open the Source Control view (Ctrl+Shift+G)
2. Click “…” menu in the Source Control panel
3. Select “Pull Request > Create Pull Request”
4. Follow the prompts to complete the PR

3. From Command Line

# Push your branch if you haven't already
git push -u origin your-branch-name

# GitHub CLI
gh pr create

Required Information

THiNK uses an official PR template located at .github/pull_request_template.md. This template will automatically populate when you create a new PR and includes:

## What's this doing?
<!-- Explain it to a junior dev -->

## Why is this necessary?
<!-- Link to Jira ticket or user story -->

## How to Test
1. Checkout branch
2. Run environment setup
3. Run tests
4. Try specific scenarios

## Gotchas
<!-- Anything weird reviewers should watch for? -->

## Checklist
- [ ] Tests added/updated
- [ ] Documentation updated
- [ ] Model metrics logged (if ML changes)
- [ ] CI/CD pipeline passes

The template helps ensure:

• Clear explanation for junior developers
• Proper linking to tickets
• Complete testing instructions
• Awareness of potential issues
• Quality checklist completion

Best Practices

PR Title

Use descriptive, action-oriented titles:

• ✅ “Add user authentication to dashboard”
• ✅ “Fix memory leak in data processing pipeline”
• ❌ “Updates”
• ❌ “Fix stuff”

PR Description

Include:

• What: Clear summary of changes
• Why: Business justification or bug description
• How: Technical approach taken
• Testing: How to verify the changes work

Size Guidelines

• Keep PRs small and focused (< 400 lines of code when possible)
• One feature or fix per PR
• Split large changes into multiple PRs

Next Steps

1. Request reviewers
2. Address any CI/CD failures
3. Respond to review comments

Common Issues

• CI Failures: Check the Actions tab for error details
• Merge Conflicts: Rebase your branch on main
• Missing Template: Copy from .github/pull_request_template.md

For questions, tag a maintainer in your PR or reach out on Slack.