How to Write Pull Requests That Get Approved Fast
We've all been there: you finish a feature in 2 hours, but it takes 3 days to get it merged. The "Review Cycle" is often the slowest part of the SDLC.
If you want your PRs merged quickly, you need to make the reviewer's life easy. Here is how to do it.
1. The Title is Your First Impression
Avoid "Fix bug" or "Update file". Use a clear, descriptive title that follows a pattern (e.g., Conventional Commits).
- ▹Bad:
feat: added stuff - ▹Good:
feat(auth): implement rate limiting for login attempts
2. Write for the "Why", Not the "What"
The reviewer can see what changed in the diff. They need you to explain why you chose this approach and what problem it solves.
- ▹Tip: Link the JIRA/GitHub issue directly in the description.
3. The "Self-Review" Rule
Before you assign a reviewer, read through your own diff. You will almost always find a console.log, a typo, or a missing test that you would have been embarrassed to have someone else catch.
4. Keep it Small (The Rule of 200)
Research shows that review quality drops off a cliff after 200-300 lines of code. If your change is bigger than that, break it into "Stacking PRs".
- ▹Smaller PRs are less intimidating and get picked up faster.
5. Use Visuals for UI Changes
If you changed the frontend, include a screenshot or a screen recording (GIF/MP4). It saves the reviewer from having to pull your branch and run it locally just to see what it looks like.
6. Proactively Address "Controversial" Code
If you had to use a hack or an unusual pattern because of a library limitation, add a comment on that line in the PR before someone asks about it.
- ▹
// NOTE: We have to use 'any' here because the @types/library is currently broken for this specific case.
7. Define Success
Tell the reviewer how to verify your change.
- ▹
How to test: Run 'npm test', then login with user 'test@mesrai.com' and try to fail password 5 times.
Speed Up Further with Mesrai
Even the best PR takes time to read. Mesrai provides an instant "First Pass" review, catching the easy mistakes so your human reviewers can focus on the important stuff and click "Approve" faster.