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wolfgangwalther merged 3 commits into from
Sep 2, 2025
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CONTRIBUTING: review and merge conventions #438686

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CONTRIBUTING: use pr-template short link
wolfgangwalther Aug 30, 2025
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CONTRIBUTING: clarify pushing to others' PRs is allowed
wolfgangwalther Aug 30, 2025
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CONTRIBUTING: default to non-blocking comments
wolfgangwalther Aug 30, 2025
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21 changes: 18 additions & 3 deletions CONTRIBUTING.md
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Expand Up @@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ This section describes how changes can be proposed with a pull request (PR).

6. [Create a pull request](https://docs.github.com/en/pull-requests/collaborating-with-pull-requests/proposing-changes-to-your-work-with-pull-requests/creating-a-pull-request#creating-the-pull-request) from the new branch in your Nixpkgs fork to the upstream Nixpkgs repository.
Use the branch from step 1 as the PR's base branch.
Go through the [pull request template](#pull-request-template).
Go through the [pull request template][pr-template].

7. Respond to review comments and potentially to CI failures and merge conflicts by updating the PR.
Always keep it in a mergeable state.
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -526,8 +526,23 @@ While this potentially can be understood by reading code, PR discussion or upstr
Simple package version updates need to include the attribute name, old and new versions, as well as a reference to the release notes or changelog.
Package upgrades with more extensive changes require more verbose commit messages.

Pull requests should not be squash-merged, as this discards information including detail from commit messages, GPG signatures, and authorship.
Many pull requests don't make sense as a single commit anyway.
## Review and Merge conventions

Comments on Pull Requests are considered non-blocking by default.
Every blocking comment must be explicitly marked as such by using GitHub's "Request Changes" review type.
A reviewer who submits a blocking review should be available for discussion and re-review.
An abandoned review may be dismissed after reasonable time was given at the discretion of the merger.

All suggestions for change, blocking or not, should be acknowledged before merge.
This can happen implicitly by applying the suggestion, or explicitly by rejecting it.

To make changes on commit structure and commit messages or apply simple suggestions, committers are encouraged to [checkout the PR](https://cli.github.com/manual/gh_pr_checkout) and push directly to the contributor's branch before merging.
Committers will carefully weigh the cost of another review cycle against the feelings of the contributor when pushing to their branch.
They should also transparently communicate which changes they made.
If a contributor does not want committers to push to their branch, they must uncheck the "Allow edits and access to secrets by maintainers" box explicitly.

> [!WARNING]
> Committers: Branches created via `gh pr checkout` can't be pushed with `--force-with-lease`, so do a sanity check before pushing.

## Code conventions
[code-conventions]: #code-conventions
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