Guidelines for Small, Fast Pull Requests in Remote Development Teams

As a fully remote team with members worldwide, our code reviews and pull requests must be conducted remotely.

As a PR writer I will: Keep the PR small Use labels to indicate the PR is part of many pieces Announce the PR on Slack after publishing

As a PR reviewer I will: Review as soon as I have time Approve if it is better than before Avoid rejecting; instead open a ticket or ask for a follow‑up PR Provide suggestions rather than rejections, especially when labels indicate multiple parts

PRs need to be small and fast!

This aligns with the programmer's oath: "I will release frequently and in small increments so I do not block others' progress."

Larger requests take longer to review

We aim to approach a "head‑development" method where code flows easily into master/develop, fighting long‑lived feature branches that are the root of many problems.

Therefore, PRs must be reviewable quickly to merge fast, which only works for small PRs. Companies often limit PR size to fewer than 300 lines.

Long PRs tire reviewers

If reviewing becomes exhausting, developers will avoid it, but frequent code checks are essential.

Provide context

Help reviewers understand changes with good descriptions and screenshots.

Prevent context switching

Give PR submitters early feedback so they don’t have to switch back to a PR after working on other tasks; aim for PRs at least daily, if not more often.

Reviewers also need help

Reviewing only once a day doesn’t work; review frequently—after breaks, before new tickets, after Pomodoro sessions, or after opening a new PR.

Our team introduced a limit on open PRs, similar to a WIP limit on a Kanban board; when the limit is reached, everyone must review others’ PRs to clear the queue.

Focus on important things

Automate code style checks with CI (static analysis, anti‑patterns, complexity, potential memory leaks) so reviewers can focus on logic and architecture.

Don’t be too serious

PRs are discussions; be friendly, use emojis and GIFs, and give positive feedback when something is done well.

Avoid long architectural debates in PRs

Use other channels like daily/weekly developer meetings for extensive discussions; PRs should ensure quality and catch bugs, not replace pair programming or architecture design.

Approve if the code is better

Open an issue or ticket for improvements; if a PR only partially addresses a ticket, prioritize it and expect a follow‑up PR soon.

Don’t be afraid

In a remote environment, PRs may be merged overnight without your review; trust and courage are needed as the team grows.

Original article translated from the "Distributed Research Lab" public account by Zhang Yanpo. The refined version is available at https://blog.openacid.com/culture/pr/