Proposal: improving review process with bot-assisted checkboxes

[moul]

We've been mulling over boosting our review process (#998, #985, #1005, and more).

Here's what I'm thinking:

1. We kick-off with a comment sporting a checkbox and easy-peasy instructions. A bot gets to tick this when the contributor's nailed all tasks, or a reviewer steps in to give it a nod.
2. We keep a CI/CD check yellow - a signal we're on standby, not in error mode - until the checkbox gets a tick.
3. Bonus: this special comment can be updated by the bot to give straightforward specific instructions.

This ensures that either the contributor's done their bit, or a reviewer's given it a thumbs up.

There's good stuff happening over at https://github.com/snyk/release-notes-preview - they're using a similar system for making commit messages chime with automatic changelog and releases.

Later on, our bot could step up - like ensuring devs have signed off on a DCO, or handling specific directives for crucial repo folders. For this, I'd go with a CI/CD reacting to PR changes, and invoking a homemade Go script we could nestle in misc/gh-action.

What do you think? Let's chew the fat over this.

[moul]

cc @ajnavarro @harry-hov @zivkovicmilos

[moul]

Update:

Changed settings to Title and description from Title and commit messages.

Realized the extension "refined github" already handles improvements: Read more.

We can maintain the current setup and explore configuring "refined github" to omit checkboxes while preserving other elements.

[ajnavarro]

@moul a super simple required checked checker: https://github.com/marketplace/actions/require-checklist