Pull request
A pull request (PR) — also called a merge request in GitLab / Bitbucket — is a proposal to merge changes from one git branch into another, typically with code review and CI checks gating the merge. PRs are the standard unit of work delivery in modern engineering teams; PR review quality and turnaround time are leading indicators of overall delivery health.
PR best practices: keep PRs small (under ~400 lines is the canonical threshold for quality review), describe the why not just the what in the description, link to the story or ticket, and respond to comments quickly. Teams that measure PR cycle time (open → merged) and review wait time (first review request → first review comment) usually find code review is their biggest queue. Trunk-based development pushes PR size even smaller; some teams target sub-100-line PRs to keep review fast.
Long-form posts that explore pull request in depth — when to use it, common failure modes, how AI helps.
Related terms
- Code review
Code review is the practice of having another engineer evaluate proposed changes before they merge.
- Trunk-based development
Trunk-based development is a source-control workflow where engineers integrate small changes to a single shared branch (trunk / main) at least once per day, gated by automated tests and feature flags rather than long-lived branches.
- Continuous deployment
Continuous deployment automatically deploys every change that passes the test suite into production — no human gate between merging code and serving traffic.