pr-writer

PR Writer

Create pull requests following Sentry's engineering practices.

Requires: GitHub CLI (gh) authenticated and available.

Prerequisites

Before creating a PR, ensure all changes are committed to a feature branch, not to the default branch.

# Check current branch and for uncommitted changes
git branch --show-current
git status --porcelain

If on main or master, create a feature branch and move any uncommitted changes onto it before committing — a PR cannot be opened from the default branch against itself. If there are uncommitted changes, commit them on the feature branch before proceeding.

Process

Step 1: Verify Branch State

# Detect the default branch — note the output for use in subsequent commands
gh repo view --json defaultBranchRef --jq '.defaultBranchRef.name'

# Check current branch and status (substitute the detected branch name above for BASE)
git status
git log BASE..HEAD --oneline

Ensure:

• All changes are committed
• Branch is up to date with remote
• Changes are rebased on the base branch if needed

Step 2: Analyze Changes

Review what will be included in the PR:

# See all commits that will be in the PR (substitute detected branch name for BASE)
git log BASE..HEAD

# See the full diff
git diff BASE...HEAD

Understand the scope and purpose of all changes before writing the description.

Step 3: Write the PR Description

Use this structure for PR descriptions (ignoring any repository PR templates):

<brief description of what the PR does>

<why these changes are being made - the motivation>

<alternative approaches considered, if any>

<any additional context reviewers need>

Do NOT include:

• "Test plan" sections
• Checkbox lists of testing steps
• Redundant summaries of the diff
• Customer data — customer/org names, user emails, support ticket contents, or PII. Describe the technical symptom, not who hit it, and if available, reference the internal ticket (e.g. Fixes SENTRY-1234). PRs are typically public on open-source repos.

Do include:

• Clear explanation of what and why
• Links to relevant issues or tickets
• Context that isn't obvious from the code
• Notes on specific areas that need careful review

Step 4: Create the PR

gh pr create --draft --title "<type>(<scope>): <description>" --body "$(cat <<'EOF'
<description body here>
EOF
)"

Title format follows commit conventions:

• feat(scope): Add new feature
• fix(scope): Fix the bug
• ref: Refactor something

PR Description Examples

Feature PR

Add Slack thread replies for alert notifications

When an alert is updated or resolved, we now post a reply to the original
Slack thread instead of creating a new message. This keeps related
notifications grouped and reduces channel noise.

Previously considered posting edits to the original message, but threading
better preserves the timeline of events and works when the original message
is older than Slack's edit window.

Refs SENTRY-1234

Bug Fix PR

Handle null response in user API endpoint

The user endpoint could return null for soft-deleted accounts, causing
dashboard crashes when accessing user properties. This adds a null check
and returns a proper 404 response.

Found while investigating SENTRY-5678.

Fixes SENTRY-5678

Refactor PR

Extract validation logic to shared module

Moves duplicate validation code from the alerts, issues, and projects
endpoints into a shared validator class. No behavior change.

This prepares for adding new validation rules in SENTRY-9999 without
duplicating logic across endpoints.

Issue References

Reference issues in the PR body:

Syntax	Effect
Fixes #1234	Closes GitHub issue on merge
Fixes SENTRY-1234	Closes Sentry issue
Refs GH-1234	Links without closing
Refs LINEAR-ABC-123	Links Linear issue

Guidelines

• One PR per feature/fix - Don't bundle unrelated changes
• Keep PRs reviewable - Smaller PRs get faster, better reviews
• Explain the why - Code shows what; description explains why
• Mark WIP early - Use draft PRs for early feedback

Editing Existing PRs

If you need to update a PR after creation, use gh api instead of gh pr edit:

# Update PR description
gh api -X PATCH repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/PR_NUMBER -f body="$(cat <<'EOF'
Updated description here
EOF
)"

# Update PR title
gh api -X PATCH repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/PR_NUMBER -f title='new: Title here'

# Update both
gh api -X PATCH repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/PR_NUMBER \
  -f title='new: Title' \
  -f body='New description'

Note: gh pr edit is currently broken due to GitHub's Projects (classic) deprecation.

References

• Sentry Code Review Guidelines
• Sentry Commit Messages