Pull Request Best Practices for CONTRIBUTING.md

Pull Request Best Practices

A well-documented PR process reduces back-and-forth between contributors and maintainers. Include these sections in your contributing guide.

PR Size

## Pull Request Guidelines

Keep PRs focused and small:
- Ideal: < 400 lines changed
- Acceptable: < 800 lines
- Needs splitting: > 800 lines

Large PRs are harder to review, more likely to introduce bugs,
and take longer to merge.

PR Description Template

## Description
Brief description of changes.

## Type of Change
- [ ] Bug fix
- [ ] New feature
- [ ] Breaking change
- [ ] Documentation update

## How to Test
Steps to verify the changes.

## Related Issues
Closes #123

Linking Issues

Always link related issues using GitHub keywords:

• Closes #123 -- Automatically closes the issue on merge
• Fixes #456 -- Same as Closes
• Relates to #789 -- Links without closing

CI Requirements

List what must pass before review:

• Linting (npm run lint)
• Unit tests (npm test)
• Build (npm run build)
• Type checking (npm run typecheck)

Merge Strategy

Document which merge strategy you use:

• Squash and merge -- All commits become one; keeps main history clean
• Rebase and merge -- Preserves individual commits; requires clean history
• Merge commit -- Creates a merge commit; preserves full branch history

Draft PRs

Encourage early drafts:

Open a draft PR early if you want feedback on your approach before completing the implementation. Draft PRs will not be formally reviewed but maintainers may offer guidance.