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 734 </head>
 735 <body class="article">
 736 <div id="header">
 737 <h1>Reviewing Patches in the Git Project</h1>
 738 <span id="revdate">2024-05-16</span>
 739 </div>
 740 <div id="content">
 741 <div class="sect1">
 742 <h2 id="_introduction">Introduction</h2>
 743 <div class="sectionbody">
 744 <div class="paragraph"><p>The Git development community is a widely distributed, diverse, ever-changing
 745 group of individuals. Asynchronous communication via the Git mailing list poses
 746 unique challenges when reviewing or discussing patches. This document contains
 747 some guiding principles and helpful tools you can use to make your reviews both
 748 more efficient for yourself and more effective for other contributors.</p></div>
 749 <div class="paragraph"><p>Note that none of the recommendations here are binding or in any way a
 750 requirement of participation in the Git community. They are provided as a
 751 resource to supplement your skills as a contributor.</p></div>
 752 </div>
 753 </div>
 754 <div class="sect1">
 755 <h2 id="_principles">Principles</h2>
 756 <div class="sectionbody">
 757 <div class="sect2">
 758 <h3 id="_selecting_patch_es_to_review">Selecting patch(es) to review</h3>
 759 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you are looking for a patch series in need of review, start by checking
 760 the latest "What&#8217;s cooking in git.git" email
 761 (<a href="https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqilm1yp3m.fsf@gitster.g/">example</a>). The "What&#8217;s
 762 cooking" emails &amp; replies can be found using the query <code>s:"What's cooking"</code> on
 763 the <a href="https://lore.kernel.org/git/"><code>lore.kernel.org</code> mailing list archive</a>;
 764 alternatively, you can find the contents of the "What&#8217;s cooking" email tracked
 765 in <code>whats-cooking.txt</code> on the <code>todo</code> branch of Git. Topics tagged with "Needs
 766 review" and those in the "[New Topics]" section are typically those that would
 767 benefit the most from additional review.</p></div>
 768 <div class="paragraph"><p>Patches can also be searched manually in the mailing list archive using a query
 769 like <code>s:"PATCH" -s:"Re:"</code>. You can browse these results for topics relevant to
 770 your expertise or interest.</p></div>
 771 <div class="paragraph"><p>If you&#8217;ve already contributed to Git, you may also be CC&#8217;d in another
 772 contributor&#8217;s patch series. These are topics where the author feels that your
 773 attention is warranted. This may be because their patch changes something you
 774 wrote previously (making you a good judge of whether the new approach does or
 775 doesn&#8217;t work), or because you have the expertise to provide an exceptionally
 776 helpful review. There is no requirement to review these patches but, in the
 777 spirit of open source collaboration, you should strongly consider doing so.</p></div>
 778 </div>
 779 <div class="sect2">
 780 <h3 id="_reviewing_patches">Reviewing patches</h3>
 781 <div class="paragraph"><p>While every contributor takes their own approach to reviewing patches, here are
 782 some general pieces of advice to make your reviews as clear and helpful as
 783 possible. The advice is broken into two rough categories: high-level reviewing
 784 guidance, and concrete tips for interacting with patches on the mailing list.</p></div>
 785 <div class="sect3">
 786 <h4 id="_high_level_guidance">High-level guidance</h4>
 787 <div class="ulist"><ul>
 788 <li>
 789 <p>
 790 Remember to review the content of commit messages for correctness and clarity,
 791   in addition to the code change in the patch&#8217;s diff. The commit message of a
 792   patch should accurately and fully explain the code change being made in the
 793   diff.
 794 </p>
 795 </li>
 796 <li>
 797 <p>
 798 Reviewing test coverage is an important - but easy to overlook - component of
 799   reviews. A patch&#8217;s changes may be covered by existing tests, or new tests may
 800   be introduced to exercise new behavior. Checking out a patch or series locally
 801   allows you to manually mutate lines of new &amp; existing tests to verify expected
 802   pass/fail behavior. You can use this information to verify proper coverage or
 803   to suggest additional tests the author could add.
 804 </p>
 805 </li>
 806 <li>
 807 <p>
 808 When providing a recommendation, be as clear as possible about whether you
 809   consider it "blocking" (the code would be broken or otherwise made worse if an
 810   issue isn&#8217;t fixed) or "non-blocking" (the patch could be made better by taking
 811   the recommendation, but acceptance of the series does not require it).
 812   Non-blocking recommendations can be particularly ambiguous when they are
 813   related to - but outside the scope of - a series ("nice-to-have"s), or when
 814   they represent only stylistic differences between the author and reviewer.
 815 </p>
 816 </li>
 817 <li>
 818 <p>
 819 When commenting on an issue, try to include suggestions for how the author
 820   could fix it. This not only helps the author to understand and fix the issue,
 821   it also deepens and improves your understanding of the topic.
 822 </p>
 823 </li>
 824 <li>
 825 <p>
 826 Reviews do not need to exclusively point out problems. Feel free to "think out
 827   loud" in your review: describe how you read &amp; understood a complex section of
 828   a patch, ask a question about something that confused you, point out something
 829   you found exceptionally well-written, etc. In particular, uplifting feedback
 830   goes a long way towards encouraging contributors to participate more actively
 831   in the Git community.
 832 </p>
 833 </li>
 834 </ul></div>
 835 </div>
 836 <div class="sect3">
 837 <h4 id="_performing_your_review">Performing your review</h4>
 838 <div class="ulist"><ul>
 839 <li>
 840 <p>
 841 Provide your review comments per-patch in a plaintext "Reply-All" email to the
 842   relevant patch. Comments should be made inline, immediately below the relevant
 843   section(s).
 844 </p>
 845 </li>
 846 <li>
 847 <p>
 848 You may find that the limited context provided in the patch diff is sometimes
 849   insufficient for a thorough review. In such cases, you can review patches in
 850   your local tree by either applying patches with <a href="git-am.html">git-am(1)</a> or checking
 851   out the associated branch from <a href="https://github.com/gitster/git">https://github.com/gitster/git</a> once the series
 852   is tracked there.
 853 </p>
 854 </li>
 855 <li>
 856 <p>
 857 Large, complicated patch diffs are sometimes unavoidable, such as when they
 858   refactor existing code. If you find such a patch difficult to parse, try
 859   reviewing the diff produced with the <code>--color-moved</code> and/or
 860   <code>--ignore-space-change</code> options.
 861 </p>
 862 </li>
 863 <li>
 864 <p>
 865 If a patch is long, you are encouraged to delete parts of it that are
 866   unrelated to your review from the email reply. Make sure to leave enough
 867   context for readers to understand your comments!
 868 </p>
 869 </li>
 870 <li>
 871 <p>
 872 If you cannot complete a full review of a series all at once, consider letting
 873   the author know (on- or off-list) if/when you plan to review the rest of the
 874   series.
 875 </p>
 876 </li>
 877 </ul></div>
 878 </div>
 879 </div>
 880 <div class="sect2">
 881 <h3 id="_completing_a_review">Completing a review</h3>
 882 <div class="paragraph"><p>Once each patch of a series is reviewed, the author (and/or other contributors)
 883 may discuss the review(s). This may result in no changes being applied, or the
 884 author will send a new version of their patch(es).</p></div>
 885 <div class="paragraph"><p>After a series is rerolled in response to your or others' review, make sure to
 886 re-review the updates. If you are happy with the state of the patch series,
 887 explicitly indicate your approval (typically with a reply to the latest
 888 version&#8217;s cover letter). Optionally, you can let the author know that they can
 889 add a "Reviewed-by: &lt;you&gt;" trailer if they resubmit the reviewed patch verbatim
 890 in a later iteration of the series.</p></div>
 891 <div class="paragraph"><p>Finally, subsequent "What&#8217;s cooking" emails may explicitly ask whether a
 892 reviewed topic is ready for merging to the &#8216;next` branch (typically phrased
 893 "Will merge to 'next&#8217;?"). You can help the maintainer and author by responding
 894 with a short description of the state of your (and others', if applicable)
 895 review, including the links to the relevant thread(s).</p></div>
 896 </div>
 897 </div>
 898 </div>
 899 <div class="sect1">
 900 <h2 id="_terminology">Terminology</h2>
 901 <div class="sectionbody">
 902 <div class="dlist"><dl>
 903 <dt class="hdlist1">
 904 nit:
 905 </dt>
 906 <dd>
 907 <p>
 908         Denotes a small issue that should be fixed, such as a typographical error
 909         or misalignment of conditions in an <code>if()</code> statement.
 910 </p>
 911 </dd>
 912 <dt class="hdlist1">
 913 aside:
 914 </dt>
 915 <dt class="hdlist1">
 916 optional:
 917 </dt>
 918 <dt class="hdlist1">
 919 non-blocking:
 920 </dt>
 921 <dd>
 922 <p>
 923         Indicates to the reader that the following comment should not block the
 924         acceptance of the patch or series. These are typically recommendations
 925         related to code organization &amp; style, or musings about topics related to
 926         the patch in question, but beyond its scope.
 927 </p>
 928 </dd>
 929 <dt class="hdlist1">
 930 s/&lt;before&gt;/&lt;after&gt;/
 931 </dt>
 932 <dd>
 933 <p>
 934         Shorthand for "you wrote &lt;before&gt;, but I think you meant &lt;after&gt;," usually
 935         for misspellings or other typographical errors. The syntax is a reference
 936         to "substitute" command commonly found in Unix tools such as <code>ed</code>, <code>sed</code>,
 937         <code>vim</code>, and <code>perl</code>.
 938 </p>
 939 </dd>
 940 <dt class="hdlist1">
 941 cover letter
 942 </dt>
 943 <dd>
 944 <p>
 945         The "Patch 0" of a multi-patch series. This email describes the
 946         high-level intent and structure of the patch series to readers on the
 947         Git mailing list. It is also where the changelog notes and range-diff of
 948         subsequent versions are provided by the author.
 949 </p>
 950 <div class="paragraph"><p>On single-patch submissions, cover letter content is typically not sent as a
 951 separate email. Instead, it is inserted between the end of the patch&#8217;s commit
 952 message (after the <code>---</code>) and the beginning of the diff.</p></div>
 953 </dd>
 954 <dt class="hdlist1">
 955 #leftoverbits
 956 </dt>
 957 <dd>
 958 <p>
 959   Used by either an author or a reviewer to describe features or suggested
 960   changes that are out-of-scope of a given patch or series, but are relevant
 961   to the topic for the sake of discussion.
 962 </p>
 963 </dd>
 964 </dl></div>
 965 </div>
 966 </div>
 967 <div class="sect1">
 968 <h2 id="_see_also">See Also</h2>
 969 <div class="sectionbody">
 970 <div class="paragraph"><p><a href="MyFirstContribution.html">MyFirstContribution</a></p></div>
 971 </div>
 972 </div>
 973 </div>
 974 <div id="footnotes"><hr /></div>
 975 <div id="footer">
 976 <div id="footer-text">
 977 Last updated
 978  2023-10-23 14:43:46 PDT
 979 </div>
 980 </div>
 981 </body>
 982 </html>