Documentation: add ReviewingGuidelines
Add a reviewing guidelines document including advice and common terminology used in Git mailing list reviews. The document is included in the 'TECH_DOCS' list in order to include it in Git's published documentation. Helped-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de> Helped-by: Derrick Stolee <derrickstolee@github.com> Helped-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> Helped-by: Josh Steadmon <steadmon@google.com> Signed-off-by: Victoria Dye <vdye@github.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Victoria Dye committed
Sep 19, 2022 at 19:12 UTC
e01b851923d43cbd3c5b7055f689cc18283591b9
2 files changed
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Documentation/Makefile
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@@ -90,6 +90,7 @@ SP_ARTICLES += howto/coordinate-embargoed-releases
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API_DOCS = $(patsubst %.txt,%,$(filter-out technical/api-index-skel.txt technical/api-index.txt, $(wildcard technical/api-*.txt)))
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SP_ARTICLES += $(API_DOCS)
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+TECH_DOCS += ReviewingGuidelines
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TECH_DOCS += MyFirstContribution
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TECH_DOCS += MyFirstObjectWalk
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TECH_DOCS += SubmittingPatches
Documentation/ReviewingGuidelines.txt
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+Reviewing Patches in the Git Project
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+====================================
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+
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+Introduction
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+------------
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+The Git development community is a widely distributed, diverse, ever-changing
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+group of individuals. Asynchronous communication via the Git mailing list poses
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+unique challenges when reviewing or discussing patches. This document contains
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+some guiding principles and helpful tools you can use to make your reviews both
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+more efficient for yourself and more effective for other contributors.
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+
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+Note that none of the recommendations here are binding or in any way a
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+requirement of participation in the Git community. They are provided as a
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+resource to supplement your skills as a contributor.
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+
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+Principles
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+----------
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+
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+Selecting patch(es) to review
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+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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+If you are looking for a patch series in need of review, start by checking
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+latest "What's cooking in git.git" email
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+(https://lore.kernel.org/git/xmqqilm1yp3m.fsf@gitster.g/[example]). The "What's
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+cooking" emails & replies can be found using the query `s:"What's cooking"` on
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+the https://lore.kernel.org/git/[`lore.kernel.org` mailing list archive];
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+alternatively, you can find the contents of the "What's cooking" email tracked
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+in `whats-cooking.txt` on the `todo` branch of Git. Topics tagged with "Needs
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+review" and those in the "[New Topics]" section are typically those that would
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+benefit the most from additional review.
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+
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+Patches can also be searched manually in the mailing list archive using a query
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+like `s:"PATCH" -s:"Re:"`. You can browse these results for topics relevant to
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+your expertise or interest.
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+
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+If you've already contributed to Git, you may also be CC'd in another
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+contributor's patch series. These are topics where the author feels that your
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+attention is warranted. This may be because their patch changes something you
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+wrote previously (making you a good judge of whether the new approach does or
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+doesn't work), or because you have the expertise to provide an exceptionally
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+helpful review. There is no requirement to review these patches but, in the
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+spirit of open source collaboration, you should strongly consider doing so.
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+
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+Reviewing patches
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+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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+While every contributor takes their own approach to reviewing patches, here are
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+some general pieces of advice to make your reviews as clear and helpful as
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+possible. The advice is broken into two rough categories: high-level reviewing
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+guidance, and concrete tips for interacting with patches on the mailing list.
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+
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+==== High-level guidance
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+- Remember to review the content of commit messages for correctness and clarity,
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+ in addition to the code change in the patch's diff. The commit message of a
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+ patch should accurately and fully explain the code change being made in the
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+ diff.
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+
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+- Reviewing test coverage is an important - but easy to overlook - component of
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+ reviews. A patch's changes may be covered by existing tests, or new tests may
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+ be introduced to exercise new behavior. Checking out a patch or series locally
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+ allows you to manually mutate lines of new & existing tests to verify expected
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+ pass/fail behavior. You can use this information to verify proper coverage or
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+ to suggest additional tests the author could add.
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+
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+- When providing a recommendation, be as clear as possible about whether you
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+ consider it "blocking" (the code would be broken or otherwise made worse if an
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+ issue isn't fixed) or "non-blocking" (the patch could be made better by taking
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+ the recommendation, but acceptance of the series does not require it).
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+ Non-blocking recommendations can be particularly ambiguous when they are
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+ related to - but outside the scope of - a series ("nice-to-have"s), or when
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+ they represent only stylistic differences between the author and reviewer.
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+
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+- When commenting on an issue, try to include suggestions for how the author
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+ could fix it. This not only helps the author to understand and fix the issue,
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+ it also deepens and improves your understanding of the topic.
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+
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+- Reviews do not need to exclusively point out problems. Feel free to "think out
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+ loud" in your review: describe how you read & understood a complex section of
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+ a patch, ask a question about something that confused you, point out something
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+ you found exceptionally well-written, etc. In particular, uplifting feedback
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+ goes a long way towards encouraging contributors to participate more actively
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+ in the Git community.
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+
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+==== Performing your review
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+- Provide your review comments per-patch in a plaintext "Reply-All" email to the
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+ relevant patch. Comments should be made inline, immediately below the relevant
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+ section(s).
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+
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+- You may find that the limited context provided in the patch diff is sometimes
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+ insufficient for a thorough review. In such cases, you can review patches in
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+ your local tree by either applying patches with linkgit:git-am[1] or checking
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+ out the associated branch from https://github.com/gitster/git once the series
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+ is tracked there.
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+
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+- Large, complicated patch diffs are sometimes unavoidable, such as when they
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+ refactor existing code. If you find such a patch difficult to parse, try
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+ reviewing the diff produced with the `--color-moved` and/or
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+ `--ignore-space-change` options.
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+
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+- If a patch is long, you are encouraged to delete parts of it that are
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+ unrelated to your review from the email reply. Make sure to leave enough
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+ context for readers to understand your comments!
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+
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+- If you cannot complete a full review of a series all at once, consider letting
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+ the author know (on- or off-list) if/when you plan to review the rest of the
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+ series.
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+
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+Completing a review
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+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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+Once each patch of a series is reviewed, the author (and/or other contributors)
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+may discuss the review(s). This may result in no changes being applied, or the
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+author will send a new version of their patch(es).
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+
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+After a series is rerolled in response to your or others' review, make sure to
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+re-review the updates. If you are happy with the state of the patch series,
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+explicitly indicate your approval (typically with a reply to the latest
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+version's cover letter). Optionally, you can let the author know that they can
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+add a "Reviewed-by: <you>" trailer if they resubmit the reviewed patch verbatim
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+in a later iteration of the series.
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+
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+Finally, subsequent "What's cooking" emails may explicitly ask whether a
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+reviewed topic is ready for merging to the `next` branch (typically phrased
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+"Will merge to \'next\'?"). You can help the maintainer and author by responding
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+with a short description of the state of your (and others', if applicable)
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+review, including the links to the relevant thread(s).
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+
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+Terminology
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+-----------
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+nit: ::
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+ Denotes a small issue that should be fixed, such as a typographical error
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+ or mis-alignment of conditions in an `if()` statement.
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+
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+aside: ::
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+optional: ::
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+non-blocking: ::
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+ Indicates to the reader that the following comment should not block the
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+ acceptance of the patch or series. These are typically recommendations
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+ related to code organization & style, or musings about topics related to
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+ the patch in question, but beyond its scope.
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+
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+s/<before>/<after>/::
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+ Shorthand for "you wrote <before>, but I think you meant <after>," usually
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+ for misspellings or other typographical errors. The syntax is a reference
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+ to "substitute" command commonly found in Unix tools such as `ed`, `sed`,
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+ `vim`, and `perl`.
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+
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+cover letter::
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+ The "Patch 0" of a multi-patch series. This email describes the
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+ high-level intent and structure of the patch series to readers on the
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+ Git mailing list. It is also where the changelog notes and range-diff of
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+ subsequent versions are provided by the author.
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++
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+On single-patch submissions, cover letter content is typically not sent as a
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+separate email. Instead, it is inserted between the end of the patch's commit
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+message (after the `---`) and the beginning of the diff.
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+
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+#leftoverbits::
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+ Used by either an author or a reviewer to describe features or suggested
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+ changes that are out-of-scope of a given patch or series, but are relevant
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+ to the topic for the sake of discussion.
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+
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+See Also
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+--------
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+link:MyFirstContribution.html[MyFirstContribution]