create-pr

Overview

This guide covers best practices for creating pull requests in the warp repository, including merging master, validating changes efficiently, linking Linear tasks, ensuring appropriate test coverage, and structuring your PR for effective review.

Related Skills

• write-pr-description - Write the PR body itself: template sections, prose, and reviewer guidance
• fix-errors - Fix targeted compilation, test, lint, or formatting failures before opening a PR
• warp-integration-test - Add or update integration coverage for user-visible flows, regressions, and P0 use cases
• add-feature-flag - Gate changes behind feature flags

Pre-PR Checklist

1. Merge master into your feature branch

Always merge master into your feature branch before starting the review process.

git fetch origin
git merge origin/master

Resolve any merge conflicts locally before opening the PR.

2. Review your changes

Before creating a PR, review what changes you're about to submit:

# View commits in your branch (comparing against base branch)
git --no-pager log <base-branch>..HEAD --oneline

# View file statistics for changes
git --no-pager diff <base-branch>...HEAD --stat

# View full diff
git --no-pager diff <base-branch>...HEAD

This helps you:

• Verify all intended changes are included
• Catch unintended changes before review
• Write an accurate PR description
• Ensure you're comparing against the correct base branch
• Tests: Include tests when required—bug fixes (regression test), algorithmic code (unit tests), UI components (layout test), P0 use cases (integration test). See Testing Requirements below.

3. Respect implementation agent validation

PR creation is not a validation boundary. If the implementation workflow already completed its tests, lint checks, and final formatting pass and the candidate has not changed, do not rerun them.

If merging master or preparing the PR changed source, tests, manifests, generated code, or configuration, validate the new candidate in this order:

1. Run the relevant tests and fix the code until they pass.
2. Run the applicable Clippy and other lint, typecheck, or build checks and fix their findings. Return to affected tests only when a fix materially changes behavior.
3. Run ./script/format once after all other code changes are complete.

Do not rerun tests or lint after formatting, and do not run ./script/presubmit, unless the user, task, or approved spec explicitly requires it. CI owns uncommon failures outside targeted local coverage. Documentation-only changes do not require Rust tests, Clippy, or formatting.

4. Link to Linear task

When possible, PRs should be associated with a Linear task. Use the Linear MCP tool (if available) to find corresponding issues.

Branch naming convention: Remote branches should be prefixed with your name (e.g., zheng/feature, alice/fix-bug).

How to link PRs to Linear: Include the issue ID in the PR title (e.g., [WARP-1234] Add new feature). Do this before creating the PR for automatic linking.

5. Open the PR

Use the PR template at .github/pull_request_template.md when opening PRs.

Add changelog entries when appropriate using the format at the bottom of the PR template. Some examples:

• Feature: "Global search in files across your current directories. Use CMD-F/CTRL-SHIFT-F to open."
• Improvement: "Added horizontal autoscrolling when jumping to line/column."
• Bug fix: "Fixed session viewer input being cleared when agent runs commands.

CLI workflow:

• Check if PR exists for current branch:

  Copy

  gh pr view --json number,url

  Exit code 0 if PR exists, 1 if not.

• Create a new PR:

  Copy

  # With title and body
  gh pr create --title "Title" --body "Description" --draft
  
  # Auto-fill from commits
  gh pr create --fill --draft
  
  # Use PR template file
  gh pr create --body-file .github/pull_request_template.md --title "Title" --draft

  Key flags: --draft / -d, --fill / -f, --body-file / -F, --web / -w

• Update an existing PR:

  Copy

  gh pr edit --title "New title" --body "New body"
  gh pr edit --add-reviewer username --add-label bug

• Mark PR ready for review:

  Copy

  gh pr ready

6. Include co-author attribution

When committing changes, include attribution as a trailer at the end of the commit message only — never in the PR description — and never add a second Warp/Oz co-author trailer if the commit already has one:

Co-Authored-By: Warp Agent <agent@warp.dev>

PR Description Guidelines

Use the write-pr-description skill for the body itself. It covers following the repository's template, the prose baseline, and when to add a reading order and focus areas for the reviewer.

After Opening the PR

1. Monitor CI checks - Ensure all automated checks pass
2. Respond to review comments - Address feedback promptly
3. Keep the PR up to date - Merge master if conflicts arise
4. Validate changed candidates - After code changes from review feedback, run affected tests, then lint checks, then ./script/format once. Do not repeat validation for PR metadata or an unchanged candidate.

Best Practices

• Keep PRs focused - One logical change per PR when possible
• Write clear commit messages - Explain what and why, not just what
• Self-review first - Review your own diff before requesting review
• Update tests - Ensure test coverage reflects your changes
• Document breaking changes - Call out any API changes or breaking modifications
• Use feature flags - Gate risky changes behind feature flags when appropriate (see the add-feature-flag skill)

Testing Requirements

Bug fixes require regression tests

All bug fixes should be accompanied by a regression test. This helps prevent re-breaking something that was already broken once.

The test should:

• Reproduce the original bug (would fail before the fix)
• Pass after the fix is applied
• Be clearly named to indicate what bug it's preventing

Algorithmic code requires unit tests

Code with non-trivial logic should have unit tests to validate functionality:

Examples of what needs unit tests:

• Custom data structures (e.g., SumTree)
• Search-related APIs that should return expected results for a given query
• Core layout code in the UI framework
• Any algorithmic or computational logic

Not required for:

• Sufficiently-simple functions
• Trivial getters/setters

Follow the repository's local testing conventions for guidance on writing unit tests.

UI components need layout validation tests

All UI components (implementations of View) should have a simple unit test to validate that they can be laid out without a panic.

This provides high-level coverage over rendering "safety" (though not "correctness"):

#[test]
fn test_component_can_layout() {
    use warpui::App;
    use warp::test_util::{terminal::initialize_app_for_terminal_view, add_window_with_terminal};
    
    App::test((), |mut app| async move {
        initialize_app_for_terminal_view(&mut app);
        let term = add_window_with_terminal(&mut app, None);
        
        // Render the component - should not panic
        term.update(&mut app, |view, ctx| {
            // Create and layout your component
        });
    })
}

Ask before skipping integration coverage

If the PR changes a user-visible flow, fixes an end-to-end regression, or otherwise looks like it would benefit from integration coverage, use the ask_user_question tool before creating or updating the PR to ask whether the user wants an integration test added as part of the work.

Prefer a direct choice such as:

• Yes, add an integration test before creating the PR
• No, continue without an integration test

If the user chooses to add one, use the warp-integration-test skill.

P0 use cases require integration tests

All "P0 use cases" require an integration test that covers the behavior/flow in question.

A "P0 use case" is defined as: Any behavior of the application that, if broken, warrants an out-of-band release.

Integration tests should:

• Exercise the full user-facing flow
• Validate end-to-end functionality
• Be placed in the integration/ directory

Use the warp-integration-test skill for implementation details, test registration steps, and validation workflow.