We're excited that you're considering making a contribution to the Grafana project! This document guides you through the process of creating a [pull request](https://help.github.com/en/articles/about-pull-requests/).
## Before you begin
We know you're excited to create your first pull request. Before we get started, read these resources first:
- Make sure your code follows the relevant [style guides](/contribute/style-guides).
## Your first pull request
If this is your first time contributing to an open-source project on GitHub, make sure you read about [Creating a pull request](https://help.github.com/en/articles/creating-a-pull-request).
To increase the chance of having your pull request accepted, make sure your pull request follows these guidelines:
- Title and description matches the implementation.
- Use the `actionCreatorFactory` and `reducerFactory` helpers instead of traditional switch statement reducers in Redux. Refer to [Redux framework](/contribute/style-guides/redux.md) for more details.
- Use `reducerTester` to test reducers. Refer to [Redux framework](/contribute/style-guides/redux.md) for more details.
Once you've created a pull request, the next step is to have someone review your change. A review is a learning opportunity for both the reviewer and the author of the pull request.
If you think a specific person needs to review your pull request, then you can tag them in the description or in a comment. Tag a user by typing the `@` symbol followed by their GitHub username.
We recommend that you read [How to do a code review](https://google.github.io/eng-practices/review/reviewer/) to learn more about code reviews.
## Formatting guidelines
A well-written pull request minimizes the time to get your change accepted. These guidelines help you write good commit messages and descriptions for your pull requests.
### Commit message format
Grafana uses the guidelines for commit messages outlined in [How to Write a Git Commit Message](https://chris.beams.io/posts/git-commit/), with the following additions:
- Subject line must begin with the _area_ of the commit.
- A footer in the form of an optional [keyword and issue reference](https://help.github.com/en/articles/closing-issues-using-keywords).
#### Area
The area should use upper camel case, e.g. UpperCamelCase.
Prefer using one of the following areas:
- **Build:** Changes to the build system, or external dependencies.
- **Chore:** Changes that don't affect functionality.
- **Dashboard:** Changes to the Dashboard feature.
- **Docs:** Changes to documentation.
- **Explore:** Changes to the Explore feature.
- **Plugins:** Changes to any of the plugins.
For changes to data sources, the area should be the name of the data source, e.g., AzureMonitor, Graphite, and Prometheus.
For changes to panels, the area should be the name of the panel, suffixed with Panel, e.g., GraphPanel, SinglestatPanel, and TablePanel.
The Grafana team _squashes_ all commits into one when we accept a pull request. The title of the pull request becomes the subject line of the squashed commit message. We still encourage contributors to write informative commit messages, as they becomes a part of the Git commit body.
We use the pull request title when we generate change logs for releases. As such, we strive to make the title as informative as possible.
Make sure that the title for your pull request uses the same format as the subject line in the commit message.
