diff --git a/.github/workflows/check_mandatory_trailers.yml b/.github/workflows/check_mandatory_trailers.yml
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..fcccece55
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/check_mandatory_trailers.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+name: Check Mandatory Trailers
+
+on: [push]
+
+jobs:
+  check-mandatory-trailers:
+    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
+    steps:
+      - name: checkout repository
+        uses: actions/checkout@v2
+      - name: print history
+        run: |
+          set -x
+          git log ${{ github.event.pull_request.base.ref }}
diff --git a/HISTORY.rst b/HISTORY.rst
index 4b93ab569..e9363a2aa 100644
--- a/HISTORY.rst
+++ b/HISTORY.rst
@@ -93,6 +93,7 @@ Full Change List
 - Fix issue with variant annotation export (#328)
 - Adding REST API versioning to (#333)
 - Adding more postgres versions to CI (#337)
+- Add checking for mandatory trailers (#323)
 
 -------
 v0.23.9
diff --git a/docs_manual/developer_development.rst b/docs_manual/developer_development.rst
index 1791cf82b..8805f27dc 100644
--- a/docs_manual/developer_development.rst
+++ b/docs_manual/developer_development.rst
@@ -4,8 +4,9 @@
 Development
 ===========
 
-VarFish is based on the SODAR core framework which has a `developer manual <https://sodar-core.readthedocs.io/en/latest/development.html>`_
-itself. It is worth having a look there. The following lists parts that are useful in particular:
+VarFish is based on the SODAR core framework which has a `developer manual <https://sodar-core.readthedocs.io/en/latest/development.html>`_ itself.
+It is worth having a look there.
+The following lists parts that are useful in particular:
 
 - `Models <https://sodar-core.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dev_project_app.html#models>`_
 - `Rules <https://sodar-core.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dev_project_app.html#rules-file>`_
@@ -13,3 +14,18 @@ itself. It is worth having a look there. The following lists parts that are usef
 - `Templates <https://sodar-core.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dev_project_app.html#templates>`_
     - `Icons <https://sodar-core.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dev_general.html#using-icons>`_
 - `Forms <https://sodar-core.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dev_project_app.html#forms>`_
+
+------------------
+Mandatory Trailers
+------------------
+
+In addition, the following rules apply to git commit trailers:
+
+- You may specify ``Breaks-API: true`` trailer if your commit breaks the (REST) API (and thus the CLI)
+- You may specify ``Breaks-Data-Import: true`` trailer if your commit breaks backward compatibility with data import.
+- You **must** provide ``Influences-Query-Result:`` with value ``true`` or ``false`` to mark whether your change may change the variant query results.
+- You **must** either provide a ``Related-Issue:`` trailer which references a Github commit or ``No-Related-Issue:``.
+  When specifying ``No-Related-Issue:`` you can use the following values:
+
+    - ``trivial`` - for trivial changes (commit **must** pass code review)
+    - ``reason FREE TEXT`` - provide a terse free-text reason for why there is no related reason