PR description

Write for a teammate who knows the product, hasn't followed the work, and is reading between other tasks. After one quick read they should know what changed and what to check. A dense description goes unread even when it's accurate.

Establish the behavior before drafting

Read the diff and its affected callers. Compare the base and head behavior before choosing the summary. For a change spanning several types, roles, states or delivery channels, identify the relevant cases and establish each one's before and after. Separate stored data from what people see, and distinguish surfaces such as an in-app pop-up and a desktop notification.

Include unchanged cases when readers could reasonably assume they changed. For a rule that selects cases, check its exceptions and its default for unrecognized cases. Group cases only when their baseline, outcome and conditions match; name the members when a broad label would hide the scope.

This comparison is preparation, not a required published inventory or separate artifact. Investigate the affected behavior, not the whole system. Mark unknowns and distinguish source inspection from observed behavior. Don't invent motivation or claim verification you haven't done.

Picture first

Include a picture when it makes the change easier to assess than the text or diff alone. Put it above the first heading.

• Visible behavior or layout: use an actual-product before-and-after image from pr-screenshot-comparison. Capture with seeded or test data and crop out customer names and contact details. If a useful capture is unavailable, state that verification gap under Tests.
• A flow, contract or state change: use a Mermaid diagram when it clarifies the changed behavior. If both appearance and flow need explanation, put the screenshot first and the diagram second.
• A copy-only fix: the text diff can be enough. Capture the product when layout, wrapping, truncation or interaction also changes. Apply the same usefulness test to dependency bumps, renames and comment-only changes.

Evidence selection covers recordings, command output, and data shapes. Put them under the picture, or use one in its place when it shows the change better.

Plain text

• Size the text to the change. A change with one or two points gets two to four sentences. Aim for about 200 words for ordinary changes, using the repository's template headings. Preserve meaningful differences, exceptions, unchanged cases readers could assume changed, and verification limits even when they require a longer description. Use prose or bullets for simple distinctions; use a table when it makes comparison easier. Publish an exhaustive inventory when requested. Cut repeated explanation; a small change needs no matrix or extra sections.
• Describe what the user sees, in the words the team uses about the product: screens, features, and customer situations. Write "the Team Chat message box", not the component's name, and "a rep turned Eve off", not the field value that records it. Name code only where the reviewer has to act on it. Keep technical explanation needed to assess the change in the description. Optional inline author notes can add context when that workflow is authorized.
• Make every sentence state an effect, a risk, or a check. Cover these in order, as far as they apply: what was wrong, what the change does, what else behaves differently and when it takes effect, including any deployment or feature-flag dependency, what the reviewer should check, and what's not in this PR when a reader would assume it is.
• Bold one line, the takeaway, or none.
• Tests list what a person checked by hand and what wasn't checked. CI results already show on the PR.
• When revising, rewrite the whole body. Replace a wrong line instead of appending a section for each new finding.

Link evidence from the sentence it supports, such as docs, a dashboard query, or source lines. Reuse verification already done for the current change, and put a material gap beside the claim it limits.

Cold read

Before publishing, give only the description text to a reader with no other context. Ask them what changed, what to check, and which terms they would have to ask the author about. For changes with multiple cases or surfaces, ask them to explain a meaningful case before and after and identify any important unchanged behavior. When the description has no picture, ask whether one would have shown the change faster than the text. Use that answer to revisit the picture decision above, including any capture limitation. Rewrite when an answer is wrong or takes more than two sentences. Also rewrite each flagged term that comes from the code rather than the product. Then ask again. Terms the team uses every day, such as the names of its tools and people, can stay. When you have no way to hand the text to a separate reader, skip this step and say so in your handoff.

Example

An 8-line fix to a chat editor. Not text to copy:

[before and after image]

## What and why

Fixes PAD-2336.

**Starting a list in the Team Chat message box left the placeholder showing behind the bullet.** The placeholder now hides once a list or quote starts, and comes back when it's removed.

The post edit form and the recon notes box use the same editor, so the fix is expected to apply there too. Neither surface was checked by hand.

## Tests

- Checked by hand in Team Chat: typing `- `, `1. ` and `> `, the list button, and backspacing out of a list.
- No automated test added.

Publishing

Inspect screenshots before attaching them, and continue authorized PR work while optional choices are pending.

Publish with gh pr create --body-file or gh pr edit --body-file using actual multiline text in a file. Re-read the raw saved body afterward to verify the intended text.

For any existing or new image or video attachment, read attachment links. Preserve original permanent upload URLs, run the checker before publishing and on the fetched raw body afterward, and inspect the rendered PR. A successful preview alone does not establish URL permanence. Keep PR screenshots out of Git, and upload them only with the author's authorization. Standing authorization counts.

Author self-review notes are a separate optional workflow using pr-self-review. Publishing the description does not authorize review comments or replies to teammates.