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.

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 👏

adding a gif of leslie knope and april with the caption “How much fun is it working here!?

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.

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>

Inputs

Memer Action accepts following input variables.

filter (optional) : Sort Memes posts from reddit…

Latest comments (34)

Tooster • Mar 13

I am strongly biased against specifying the PR type using checkboxes. That's what labels are for, and they also facilitate better searching and machine-readability using tools such as gh. A lot less overhead than grepping the contents.