GitHub Pull Requests

GitHub provides a system for handling pull requests for merging branches into one another.

Suppose that you have a branch called test-branch that you've finished working on and want to include your changes in the main repository. On the main navigation bar of the GitHub repository's home page, you'll see a tab labeled Pull Requests. Click the large green New Pull Request button. From there you should see a Compare changes screen. Set the base to master and set compare to [branch-name]. Save the pull request, but DO NOT take any further action. The pull request will be checked, tested, and merged by someone else chosen from the team. This is to ensure that any errors that the opener of the pull request might have missed don't make it into master. If anything is broken by a pull request, the request should be re-opened with a reviewer requested and an invalid label. The UofS-CTLE organization requires that ALL pull requests be reviewed by at least one other person before they can be merged, and that reviewer must sign off on the merge. THOUGH REPOSITORY ADMINISTRATORS MAY BYPASS THIS REQUIREMENT, THEY SHOULD NOT DO SO UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. If a pull request contains a one-line change, an administrator might be fine to push the request through, but in virtually every other scenario a review is recommended and encouraged.