# Create a pull request

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:

- Learn how to start [Contributing to Grafana](/CONTRIBUTING.md).
- 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.
- Commits within the pull request follow the [Formatting guidelines](#Formatting-guidelines). 
- The pull request closes one related issue.
- The pull request contains necessary tests that verify the intended behavior.
- If your pull request has conflicts, rebase your branch onto the master branch.

If the pull request fixes a bug:

- The pull request description must include `Closes #<issue number>` or `Fixes #<issue number>`.
- To avoid regressions, the pull request should include tests that replicate the fixed bug.

### Frontend-specific guidelines

Pull requests for frontend contributions must:

- Use [Emotion](/contribute/style-guides/styling.md) for styling.
- Not increase the Angular code base.
- Not use `any` or `{}` without reason.
- Not contain large React components that could easily be split into several smaller components.
- Not contain backend calls directly from components—use actions and Redux instead.

Pull requests for Redux contributions must:

- 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.
- Not contain code that mutates state in reducers or thunks.
- Not contain code that accesses the reducers state slice directly. Instead, the code should use state selectors to access state.

## Code review

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.

**Examples**

- `Build: Support publishing MSI to grafana.com`
- `Explore: Add Live option for supported data sources`
- `GraphPanel: Fix legend sorting issues`
- `Docs: Changed url to URL in all documentation files`

### Pull request titles

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.