Pull request self-review checklist
Run this on your own diff before requesting review — it catches the fixable mistakes so a reviewer's time goes to the judgment calls instead.
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Before you open it
0/5The diff
0/5Description
0/4Risk
0/4Questions
Why review my own pull request?
Because you catch a surprising amount in the diff view that you missed in the editor — debug statements, commented-out code, an unrelated file. It also costs your reviewer nothing, which is the point.
How large should a pull request be?
Small enough to review in under an hour, which in practice means a few hundred lines. Review effectiveness falls sharply past that, so a large diff gets approved rather than reviewed.
What belongs in the description?
Why, not what — the diff already says what. The reviewer needs the problem, the approach, and anything you considered and rejected, which is the context they cannot reconstruct from the code.
Should refactoring be in the same pull request?
No. A diff that moves code and changes behaviour is nearly impossible to review, because a reviewer cannot tell which lines are which. Separate commits at minimum, separate pull requests preferably.
What does the risk section cover?
What could break, how you would know, and how to revert. Writing it takes a minute and it is the part your reviewer, and you at 2am, will actually rely on.