🧾 Pull Request: Open, Review, Approve, Request Changes and Resolve Conflicts

Pull Request: Open, Review, Approve: A Pull Request is the same as submitting a scientific paper for peer review before publication: you do not just email the final PDF to the jo

A Pull Request is the same as submitting a scientific paper for peer review before publication: you do not just email the final PDF to the journal — you submit it through a structured process where reviewers see exactly what changed from the previous version, leave line-level comments, and the paper is only published after passing both human review and automated editorial checks. The question that reveals depth: why not just review code by reading it on Slack or in a shared doc — what does a PR add that a chat message cannot? A PR preserves the review conversation permanently next to the exact lines that were discussed, links the CI result to the specific commit, and creates a merge decision record that is auditable months later when a compliance team asks "who verified this authentication change?" Java analogy: a PR is like a formal code review gate in a Java team's Definition of Done — the code exists in a feature branch (like a local branch in development), and only after static analysis (CI checks), unit test coverage (test jobs), and peer sign-off (approvals) does it get merged, mirroring how a class gets promoted from dev to production artifact. For QA, a PR blocked by a failing Playwright test is the mechanism that stops a broken login flow from reaching users — without it, the flaky test is just a local annoyance that sneaks into production.

github-pull-request-ui-tour

GitHub Pull Request screen tour: compare, create, review and merge

Walk through a GitHub-like PR interface: Pull requests tab, compare branches, Create pull request form, Conversation, Files changed, review decision, checks and merge button.

What is a Pull Request really for?

Try It Yourself: Open a PR from the GitHub UI

After a feature branch is pushed to GitHub, practice which Pull Request UI fields to fill in order.

Open the Pull requests tab from the repository nav

Target branch should be main

Compare branch should be the feature branch

Open the PR form from compare view

Title should state the intent

Put test evidence in the description

Request the right reviewer