When first a humble branch doth part its ways from off the trunk of some great commonweal of code, and I, a stranger at the maintainer's gate, do knock with diff in trembling hand and title writ in supplicating tongue, there begins a slow and courtly dance whose measure no man rushes. For lo, the pull request is not a thing thou merely flingest o'er the wall, but rather a petition laid before the elders of the repository, who, being wearied by ten thousand prior suitors and burnt by promises of "small change, I swear't," do squint upon thy every line as though it were a serpent coiled amid the roses. And thou must wait, and waiting, water thy patience, whilst the green checks of the continuous integration march like lanterns through a fog, some passing, some expiring, until at last a reviewer, robed in the authority of the CODEOWNERS file, descendeth from the mountain of their backlog.
Then cometh the leaving of comments—nay, a dozen—each a tiny wound and each a tiny gift, for "nit:" prefixeth the small and "question:" the grave, and a lone "hm." beneath thy cleverest line is a bell that tolls for thee. And thou, if thou be wise and not a fool puffed up with thine own genius, dost thank them, and amend, and force-push with the gentleness of one who tucks a sleeping child into a cradle, and rebase upon the ever-shifting main as though it were a tide that will not hold its shore. Argue not; explain. Defend not thy pride, but thy diff, and only where the defending teacheth something; elsewhere yield, for the repository was a house before thou camest and shall be a house when thou art gone.
Keep thy scope narrow as a needle's eye, for the reviewer who openeth a change of forty files sigheth a sigh that reacheth heaven, and the change of forty files sitteth in the queue until the seasons turn and the framework is deprecated and thy branch conflicteth with the very air. One thought, one pull request; one bug slain, one clean commit; and a message in the body that telleth the poor soul what thou didst, and why, and what thou didst not do, and how they might prove it with their own two hands. A screenshot, if thine be a change of pixels. A benchmark, if thou darest speak the word "faster." Evidence, always evidence, for talk is a vapour and the diff is the deed.
And should the gods be kind and thy tests be true and thy CI be green as a spring meadow, then cometh that most blessed word, that "approve," that little shield with its checkmark bright, and after it—O sweet and final grace—the squash, the merge, the branch deleted like a bridge burned behind a victorious army. Thy name is inscribed thereafter in the blame of some far file that a thousand strangers yet unborn shall read, and curse, and bless, and git blame -L upon a Friday when the pager crieth.
This, then, good gentles, is the whole of the art, and it is not large: to come small, to come tested, to come humble; to answer swiftly and without heat; to treat the maintainer's time as the scarce and holy thing it is; and to leave the house of another's code a little tidier than thou didst find it. For the approval is not given to the loud, but to the patient. The merge belongeth not to the clever, but to the kind. And no pull request was ever yet made better by a man who argued with his reviewer at two of the clock in the morning.