PR review guidelines

Pull request reviews are essential to maintaining code quality and fostering collaboration in the nf-core community. These guidelines help ensure that reviews are thorough, timely, and constructive while keeping development momentum moving forward.

The specifications define best practices for requesting reviews, approving and merging pull requests, managing reviewer feedback, and handling commits. While these guidelines apply to all nf-core repositories, they represent proven practices for collaborative software development that can benefit any open-source project.

Tip

New to reviewing pull requests? Start with our contribution guide to learn the basics of the review process.

Review guidelines

The following specifications define best practices for the pull request review process:

  • Request reviewers and feedback: Best practices for actively requesting reviews through Slack channels and encouraging collaborative improvements to pull requests.
  • Rapid merge after review: Guidelines for merging pull requests promptly after approval, including exceptions for releases and handling major changes during review.
  • Review process scope: Guidelines for managing review feedback, dismissing outdated reviews, addressing open questions, and handling abandoned reviews.
  • Commit strategy: Best practices for using merge commits, maintaining commit history, and cleaning up feature branches after merging.