Draft Pull Requests

Draft/WIP (Work in Progress) Pull Requests

Draft pull requests (PRs) are a methodology used during the development process to gather early feedback from other developers and take advantage of CI systems integrated with the Git provider. Unlike regular PRs, draft PRs signal that the work is not yet ready for review or merge and is still part of the coding stage.

Supported Platforms

• GitHub and GitLab: Draft PRs are supported.
• Azure Repos: Draft PR status is fully supported and can be reported via their API.
• Bitbucket Cloud: Draft PRs are supported.
• Bitbucket Server: Draft PRs are supported starting from version 8.18 and above.

Behavior of Draft PRs in LinearB

1. Cycle Time Calculations:
   • Draft PRs are excluded from cycle time calculations.
   • Time spent in the draft state is attributed to Coding Time instead.
2. Notifications:
   • Draft PRs do not trigger notifications for "Review request hanging" or "Review too long."
3. Visual Indicators:
   • Draft PRs are visually distinguished by the "Draft" status on the Branches and PRs pages.

Configuring Draft PRs in LinearB

LinearB detects draft pull requests using the platform’s built-in draft status (for example, GitHub’s native draft flag). If your team uses naming cues instead of the native status, you can add custom naming patterns and regular expressions (e.g., “Draft:”, “[WIP]”, “DO NOT MERGE) so PRs with those titles are handled as drafts. This helps keep review metrics accurate until a PR is ready for review.

• Note: label-based detection can be applied repo-by-repo, if needed.

Steps for Globally Configuration:

1. Go to Company Settings > Advanced.
2. Scroll down to the Draft Pull Requests section.
3. Enter regular expressions to define naming patterns that should be recognized as draft PRs (e.g., "WIP" or "Draft").
4. Click Save.

Steps for by-repo Configuration:

1. Go to Company Settings > Git, and click the gear icon to the right of the repo you'd like to configure.
2. Scroll down to the Draft Pull Requests section.
3. Enter regular expressions to define naming patterns that should be recognized as draft PRs (e.g., "WIP" or "Draft").
4. Click Save.

Draft PRs are a valuable tool for teams to collaborate early in the development process and maintain clear differentiation between work-in-progress and ready-for-review pull requests. With LinearB's enhanced support, including Azure draft PRs, teams can ensure accurate metrics and streamlined workflows.