What happens to comments and discussions of a pull request when it is merged? Isn’t that knowledge valuable for the team? Why isn’t it rea

When you merge pull requests you lose knowledge

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2021-07-09 23:00:06

What happens to comments and discussions of a pull request when it is merged? Isn’t that knowledge valuable for the team? Why isn’t it readily accessible to future pull requests?

Pull requests (PRs) are a mainstream way of proposing changes to a codebase. One of the most important features around pull requests is the ability to perform a code review, allowing developers to inspect and comment on the proposed changes.

Frequently, the knowledge in these comments is invaluable to the team. Reviewers, which are familiar with the codebase and related technologies, will notice bad patterns, suggest optimisations, enforce team guidelines and best practices, etc.

However, as soon as you merge that pull request on GitHub, Gitlab, or Bitbucket, all this information is lost into the bag of closed PRs that you will rarely (if ever) inspect.

We all have had that déjà vu feeling when writing a comment in a code review: “Didn’t I write this comment already?” When preparing a PR sometimes we also have that feeling: “I think I’m forgetting something in this line of code.” Or better yet: “Didn’t someone already thought of this before?”