Add "Risk Matrix" section to the PR template

.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md

@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 
 Summarize your PR. If it involves visual changes include a screenshot or gif.
 
+
 ### Checklist
 
 Delete any items that are not applicable to this PR.
@@ -15,6 +16,25 @@ Delete any items that are not applicable to this PR.
 - [ ] This renders correctly on smaller devices using a responsive layout. (You can test this [in your browser](https://www.browserstack.com/guide/responsive-testing-on-local-server))
 - [ ] This was checked for [cross-browser compatibility](https://www.elastic.co/support/matrix#matrix_browsers)
 
+
+### Risk Matrix
+
+Delete this section if it is not applicable to this PR.
+
+Before closing this PR, invite QA, stakeholders, and other developers to
+identify risks that should be tested prior to the change/feature release.
+
+When forming the risk matrix, consider some of the following examples and how
+they may potentially impact the change:
+
+| Risk                      | Probability | Severity | Mitigation/Notes        |
+|---------------------------|-------------|----------|-------------------------|
+| Multiple Spaces—unexpected behavior in non-default Kibana Space. | Low | High | Integration tests will verify that all features are still supported in non-default Kibana Space and when user switches between spaces. |
+| Multiple nodes—Elasticsearch polling might have race conditions when multiple Kibana nodes are polling for the same tasks. | High | Low | Tasks are idempotent, so executing them multiple times will not result in logical error, but will degrade performance. To test for this case we add plenty of unit tests around this logic and document manual testing procedure. |
+| Code should gracefully handle cases when feature X or plugin Y are disabled. | Medium | High | Unit tests will verify that any feature flag or plugin combination still results in our service operational. |
+| [See more potential risk examples](../RISK_MATRIX.mdx) |
+
+
 ### For maintainers
 
 - [ ] This was checked for breaking API changes and was [labeled appropriately](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/master/contributing.html#kibana-release-notes-process)

RISK_MATRIX.mdx

@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+# Risk consideration
+
+When merging a new feature of considerable size or modifying an existing one,
+consider adding a *Risk Matrix* section to your PR in collaboration with other
+developers on your team and the QA team.
+
+Below are some general themes to consider for the *Risk Matrix*. (Feel free to
+add to this list.)
+
+
+## General risks
+
+- What happens when your feature is used in a non-default space or a custom
+  space?
+- What happens when there are multiple Kibana nodes using the same Elasticsearch
+  cluster?
+- What happens when a plugin you depend on is disabled?
+- What happens when a feature you depend on is disabled?
+- Is your change working correctly regardless of `kibana.yml` configuration or
+  UI Setting configuration? (For example, does it support both
+  `state:storeInSessionStorage` UI setting states?)
+- What happens when a third party integration you depend on is not responding?
+- How is authentication handled with third party services?
+- Does the feature work in Elastic Cloud?
+- Does the feature create a setting that needs to be exposed, or configured
+  differently than the default, on the Elastic Cloud?
+- Is there a significant performance impact that may affect Cloud Kibana
+  instances?
+- Does your feature need to be aware of running in a container?
+- Does the feature Work with security disabled, or fails gracefully?
+- Are there performance risks associated with your feature? Does it potentially
+  access or create: (1) many fields; (2) many indices; (3) lots of data;
+  (4) lots of saved objects; (5) large saved objects.
+- Could this cause memory to leak in either the browser or server?
+- Will your feature still work if Kibana is run behind a reverse proxy?
+- Does your feature affect other plugins?
+- If you write to the file system, what happens if Kibana node goes down? What
+  happens if there are multiple Kibana nodes?
+- Are migrations handled gracefully? Does the feature affect old indices or
+  saved objects?
+- Are you using any technologies, protocols, techniques, conventions, libraries,
+  NPM modules, etc. that may be new or unprecedented in Kibana?
+
+
+## Security risks
+
+Check to ensure that best practices are used to mitigate common vulnerabilities:
+
+- Cross-site scripting (XSS)
+- Cross-site request forgery (CSRF)
+- Remote-code execution (RCE)
+- Server-side request forgery (SSRF)
+- Prototype pollution
+- Information disclosure
+- Tabnabbing
+
+In addition to these risks, in general, server-side input validation should be
+implemented as strictly as possible. Extra care should be taken when user input
+is used to construct URLs or data structures; this is a common source of
+injection attacks and other vulnerabilities. For more information on all of
+these topics, see [Security best practices][security-best-practices].
+
+[security-best-practices]: https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/master/security-best-practices.html