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doc: show how to use to git to submit smaller and faster PRs #83839

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36 changes: 34 additions & 2 deletions doc/contribute/contributor_expectations.rst
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -11,14 +11,46 @@ benefits:
to set aside a few minutes to review smaller changes several times than it is
to allocate large blocks of time to review a large PR.

- Less wasted work if reviewers or maintainers reject the direction of the
change.
- Contentious and long discussions have a more restricted "splash damage"
because they cannot drown unrelated topics that have successfully escaped
in separate Pull Requests.

- Easier to rebase and merge. Smaller PRs are less likely to conflict with other
changes in the tree.

- Mixing different authors in the same pull request adds :ref:`extra
complications <modifying_contributions>`.

- When independent of each other, smaller PRs can progress *concurrently*.
Disagreements, nitpicks and other delays in one place do not hold back
everything else.

- Even when smaller PRs are dependent of each other, you can start reviews
and getting code merged before the whole work is complete. This faster
approach is known as "Stacked Diffs".

- Less wasted work if reviewers or maintainers reject the direction of the
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how is this considered a "benefit"? If the direction is rejected, and part of it were already merged, that is not considered a good thing

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This line is not new, I merely moved it. I could remove it.

change.

- Easier to revert if the PR breaks functionality.

- Better test coverage before merge because CI does not test intermediate
commits in a PR; only PRs as a whole.

- Better test coverage after merge. Pull Request testing is limited
because it must provide feedback in a reasonable time. Typically: under
one or two hours. After merge, Zephyr-based projects, companies and
organizations test the main branch(es) again but for longer and with a
much higher level of stress. (Post-merge testing is often called "daily"
even when run several times a day.) Merging large changes in smaller
chunks provides a tighter and faster feedback loop and makes regressions
much more obvious. This is what "Continuous" means in "Continuous
Integration".

The :ref:`Contribution workflow` section shows how to use git to submit
several, smaller pull requests. This does not require creating and
managing multiple git branches.

.. note::
This page does not apply to draft PRs which can have any size, any number of
commits and any combination of smaller PRs for testing and preview purposes.
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18 changes: 17 additions & 1 deletion doc/contribute/guidelines.rst
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -838,8 +838,24 @@ workflow here:

git push origin fix_comment_typo

#. Avoid submitting a large number of commits in a single pull request,
see :ref:`contributor-expectations` why. It is tempting to submit
all at once and hope that everything will be merged faster but the
opposite effect is generally achieved. Submitting several, smaller
pull requests does *not* require creating and managing local git
branches::

git push origin big_work~15:refs/heads/big_work_part1

In this example, the 15 most recent commits in the ``big_work`` local
branch are *omitted* from the ``big_work_part1`` remote branch and pull
request. This "Stacked Diffs" approach lets you submit part 1 and get
reviews started long before the rest is ready. When smaller parts are
independent of each other, rotating them with ``git rebase -i`` (see below)
lets you submit them concurrently which is even faster.

#. In your web browser, go to your forked repo and click on the
``Compare & pull request`` button for the branch you just worked on and
``Compare & pull request`` button for the remote branch you just pushed and
you want to open a pull request with.

#. Review the pull request changes, and verify that you are opening a pull
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