Reduce review times

Most pull requests can be reviewed and approved more quickly by following these guidelines.

Before creating a pull request—or requesting a VIP review for a pull request

• Scan the updated code with PHP Code Sniffer using the VIP Coding Standards and address any issues reported in the feedback.
• Get reviews and feedback from other internal team members.
• Create smaller, separate pull requests, especially for changes that affect more than 1000 lines of code.
• Separate pull requests should be created for:
  • Extensive whitespace changes (e.g., fixing tabs and spacing)
  • Changes that are limited to style only (e.g., revising variable names, formatting, comment blocks, etc)
  • Addition of a plugin. Create a separate pull request for each plugin added.
  • Removal of a plugin, or removal of several files.
  • A build step that results in minified or compiled JS and CSS. Setting up branches with continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) may simplify this process.
• Remove unused or unnecessary code from the production branch that does not need to be reviewed.
• Commit messages in a pull request and in the initial comment are helpful to VIP. Summarize the intent of the changes and add detail about complex abstractions.
• If a pull request is related to an open VIP Support ticket, provide a link to that ticket in the comment.

After a pull request is created

• View the pull request in GitHub and confirm that only intended changes are included, especially if there are changes made to .gitignore.
• Pull requests that contain only CSS changes (or do not contain any files with extensions that we review, such as PHP and JS) will be auto-approved.
• Development related to the pull request should be complete, with the exception of changes made to address feedback from the VIP Code Analysis Bot and the VIP reviewer’s comments.
• When making changes in response to a review, minimize the number of new commits in order to simplify the VIP reviews needed.
• Avoid making changes to an approved pull request. If possible, make needed changes in another branch, or wait until after the open pull request is merged.