All submitted pull requests go through a thorough process which aims to provide a stable, consistent and reliable software that we all know under the name PrestaShop. Here is this process in details.
When you submit a new Pull Request to the project repository, some automatic checks are triggered.
Four automatic code checker tools are active on the project.
The first tool is a PHP CS Fixer GitHub Action. This tool will look at your Pull Request and check whether the php syntax and code-style is correct. If not, it will block the PR from being merged and tell you what is wrong.
It is a lot easier to work on a big codebase like PrestaShop if all code is written following the same conventions: snake_case or camelCase, how to write the phpDoc, when to use white spaces … it makes the code look like if it was written by a single developer. Just like reading a book with two different styles in it, having a codebase with a unified style is making it easier to browse. A unified code-style also makes the pull requests easier to review.
If the Github Action states that your pull request has issues, you need to fix the issues by looking at the Github Action output to understand what needs to be fixed.
The second tool is a ESLint GitHub Action. This one checks whether the Javascript syntax and code-style is correct. Likewise, it will block the PR from being merged if there is a syntax or code-style issue.
The third tool is a stylelint GitHub Action. This one checks whether the CSS syntax and code-style is correct. It will block the PR from being merged as well if there is a syntax or code-style issue.
These GitHub Actions are executed automatically for every Pull Request.
The fourth tool is Travis. Travis is a Continous Integration system that will look at the Pull Request and run several checks, be it code-style checkers, format checkers or automated tests, and provide you the result in the Pull Request. If something is wrong it will block the PR from being merged. This is a standard approach to ensure that new contributions in a codebase do not break existing features and behaviors.
If Travis states that your pull request has issues, you need to fix the issues by looking at Travis output to understand what needs to be fixed.
Travis runs automatically for every Pull Request.
Prestonbot (based on Carsonbot) is a custom bot that looks at all Pull Requests and tries to help us manage the project. He has multiple capabilities.
For example he detects mistakes in the pull request description, he add some labels to classify the pull requests, he welcomes new contributors to the project …
Read his article for the full details.
If something is wrong, Prestonbot will write a comment in the pull request to tell you what to fix.
Issuebot (based on the probot framework) is another bot that automates our issue/PR workflow. It will make sure your Pull Request metadata, such as labels or Kanban cards, are valid.
Your Pull Request will be reviewed by a Core maintainer.
When a Core maintainer sees a pull request, they will review it and decide whether it should be accepted, if it needs changes, or if it cannot be accepted.
The review process is quite thorough in order to make sure that PrestaShop codebase gets better with each contribution. Here is all the things looked for in a Pull Request, when reviewing it:
Some Pull Requests are very hard to review because they are related to a complex topic, a complex area of the code or have a huge global impact on the software that is very hard to estimate and assess. Reviews can take hours or days in order to make sure every contribution merged in the project meets the level of quality we want for it.
Most of the time, if an issue is found during the review, the Core maintainer will provide feedback about the issue and requests the author to modify the parts of the Pull Request that cannot be accepted as they are. After the author of the Pull Request has implemented the requested changes, then the Pull Request can be approved and move forward to the next step.
For some Pull Requests, some more people of PrestaShop might be involved in the review:
Once the Pull Request has been validated by all of the relevant people, it is finally verified by the QA team. The QA team will then make sure that the behavior of the proposed change is correct and that it does not produce any regressions (new errors).
After the Pull Request has finally passed the QA validation, it is merged in the project and the author becomes (if they weren’t already) a contributor to this great open source project !
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(This article was originally published on our blog: What Happens To Pull Requests After They Are Submitted)