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736<div id="header">
737<h1>Reviewing Patches in the Git Project</h1>
Junio C Hamanocb119ab2023-11-20 16:59:13738<span id="revdate">2023-11-20</span>
Junio C Hamanoa1ee1292022-09-21 22:47:52739</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
745group of individuals. Asynchronous communication via the Git mailing list poses
746unique challenges when reviewing or discussing patches. This document contains
747some guiding principles and helpful tools you can use to make your reviews both
748more 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
750requirement of participation in the Git community. They are provided as a
751resource 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
Junio C Hamano33be8212023-10-23 21:45:54760the latest "What&#8217;s cooking in git.git" email
Junio C Hamanoa1ee1292022-09-21 22:47:52761(<a href="https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqilm1yp3m.fsf@gitster.g/">example</a>). The "What&#8217;s
762cooking" emails &amp; replies can be found using the query <code>s:"What's cooking"</code> on
763the <a href="https://lore.kernel.org/git/"><code>lore.kernel.org</code> mailing list archive</a>;
764alternatively, you can find the contents of the "What&#8217;s cooking" email tracked
765in <code>whats-cooking.txt</code> on the <code>todo</code> branch of Git. Topics tagged with "Needs
766review" and those in the "[New Topics]" section are typically those that would
767benefit 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
769like <code>s:"PATCH" -s:"Re:"</code>. You can browse these results for topics relevant to
770your 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
772contributor&#8217;s patch series. These are topics where the author feels that your
773attention is warranted. This may be because their patch changes something you
774wrote previously (making you a good judge of whether the new approach does or
775doesn&#8217;t work), or because you have the expertise to provide an exceptionally
776helpful review. There is no requirement to review these patches but, in the
777spirit 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
782some general pieces of advice to make your reviews as clear and helpful as
783possible. The advice is broken into two rough categories: high-level reviewing
784guidance, 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>
790Remember 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>
798Reviewing 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>
808When 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>
819When 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>
826Reviews 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>
841Provide 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>
848You 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>
857Large, 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>
865If 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>
872If 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)
883may discuss the review(s). This may result in no changes being applied, or the
884author 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
886re-review the updates. If you are happy with the state of the patch series,
887explicitly indicate your approval (typically with a reply to the latest
888version&#8217;s cover letter). Optionally, you can let the author know that they can
889add a "Reviewed-by: &lt;you&gt;" trailer if they resubmit the reviewed patch verbatim
890in 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
892reviewed 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
894with a short description of the state of your (and others', if applicable)
895review, 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">
904nit:
905</dt>
906<dd>
907<p>
908 Denotes a small issue that should be fixed, such as a typographical error
Junio C Hamano33be8212023-10-23 21:45:54909 or misalignment of conditions in an <code>if()</code> statement.
Junio C Hamanoa1ee1292022-09-21 22:47:52910</p>
911</dd>
912<dt class="hdlist1">
913aside:
914</dt>
915<dt class="hdlist1">
916optional:
917</dt>
918<dt class="hdlist1">
919non-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">
930s/&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">
941cover 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
951separate email. Instead, it is inserted between the end of the patch&#8217;s commit
952message (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">
977Last updated
Junio C Hamano918a6972023-10-29 23:44:11978 2023-10-24 06:43:46 JST
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