What is a pull request?
A pull request asks teammates to review and merge the changes on your branch into the main branch.
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A pull request (PR, or merge request on GitLab) is a proposal to merge one branch into another, wrapped in a conversation. You push your branch, open a PR, and the platform shows the diff, runs the CI checks and lets reviewers comment line by line. It is like handing in an essay draft for feedback before it is printed in the school magazine.
Nearly all team projects and open source repositories work this way: nobody pushes to main directly. A good PR is small, has a clear title and description, and links to the issue it solves. Once approved, it is merged with a button, and the branch is deleted. Contributing to open source means opening your first pull request on someone else’s repository.
git push -u origin fix-login
gh pr create --fillSee also: What is a branch? and What is CI/CD?
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See also
- 0038 The pull request workflow on GitHub A pull request asks to merge your branch into another one, with review and automated checks in between. This is the whole… Beginner · Step by step · Any system Article Pull requests 15 Oct 2026
- 0262 Make your first pull request: Git and GitHub from first commit to merged change A complete beginner's path through Git and GitHub: set up Git, make commits, ignore files, use branches, push to GitHub, open a… Beginner · Guided project · Any system Article Branching & rebasing · Pull requests · Setup 15 Oct 2026
- 0315 What is open source? Open source software is software whose code anyone can read, change and share under a licence that allows it. Beginner · Explains an idea · Any system Article Pull requests 15 Oct 2026
Repos in the wild
- GitHub CLI (gh) cli/cli GitHub's official command-line tool. Create and check out pull requests, manage issues, view Actions runs, and sign in to GitHub from the terminal. GitHub
History
Every saved edit is kept. The plot on the sleeve draws one line per edit. Open any edit to see exactly what changed.
- Dominik +804 chars