Create GitHub Pull Request and Issue Templates

By  on  

There's nothing more frustrating than getting an incomplete bug report.  I've often seen bug reports containing a useless "{x} feature doesn't work"; no steps to reproduce, no URL, no browser or device information, just a hopelessly vague message.  Similar is receiving a pull request or patch which doesn't state its intent and doesn't provide steps to test (and what about unit tests?).  Now that many projects are public, most on GitHub, I've seen a massive rise in these types of sparsely documented issues and pull requests.

I recently found out you an create pull request and issues templates so that when the user goes to file a pull request or issue, your template displays within the description textarea.  Let's have a look at how we can do that!

Creating Template Files

Creating and putting in place the template files is easy:

  • The proper place to put the template files is in a .github directory at the root of your repository
  • The templates are to be created in markdown format
  • The issues template text goes in a ISSUE_TEMPLATE.md file
  • The pull requests template text goes in a PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md file

A great example of template usage can be seen in the A-Frame repository.  The issue template looks as follows:

**Description:**

- A-Frame Version:
- Platform / Device:
- Reproducible Code Snippet or URL:

<!-- If you have a support question, please ask at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/ask/?tags=aframe rather than filing an issue. -->

If your community repositories suffer from lack of information in issues and pull requests, or you simply want to prevent the problem, create GitHub templates for developers.  They may not provide the information you'd like, but you can at least nudge them in the proper direction!

Recent Features

  • By
    I&#8217;m an Impostor

    This is the hardest thing I've ever had to write, much less admit to myself.  I've written resignation letters from jobs I've loved, I've ended relationships, I've failed at a host of tasks, and let myself down in my life.  All of those feelings were very...

  • By
    5 More HTML5 APIs You Didn&#8217;t Know Existed

    The HTML5 revolution has provided us some awesome JavaScript and HTML APIs.  Some are APIs we knew we've needed for years, others are cutting edge mobile and desktop helpers.  Regardless of API strength or purpose, anything to help us better do our job is a...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Introducing MooTools ScrollSide

    This post is a proof of concept post -- the functionality is yet to be perfected. Picture this: you've found yourself on a website that uses horizontal scrolling instead of vertical scrolling. It's an artistic site so you accept that the site scrolls left to right.

  • By
    HTML5 Input Types Alternative

    As you may know, HTML5 has introduced several new input types: number, date, color, range, etc. The question is: should you start using these controls or not? As much as I want to say "Yes", I think they are not yet ready for any real life...

Discussion

    Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!