Pull Request Review Template: Seven Lines That Ship Faster

We claimed a small PR header survived a decade because it saved releases. You have felt the stall: reviews drift, comments multiply, and the window slips. A missed merge window each sprint hurt delivery and trust. Our antagonist was N+1 queries hiding under sprawling threads. We promised proof, then walked through the header, the gates, and the rollout that made it real.

Show The Seven Lines Before The Diff

We wrote many formats and watched them fail. Long forms became essays, and risk hid inside the diff. We trimmed until decisions could be read in three seconds. The header sat at the top, and authors filled it before asking for review.

Title: <what changes for users or systems>
Why: <one sentence outcome, not code>
Risk: <blast radius + likely failure mode>
Plan: <flag, canary, or shadow rollout>
Metric: <name + target + dashboard path>
Revert: <single command or instruction>
Owner: <oncall alias or team handle>

Metric        Before        After
review_time   unpredictable predictable
revert_rate   higher        lower
merge_window  missed        hit