Week 2: Your First Pull Request

Phase: Onboarding
Due by Friday: Onboarding PR merged + 2 peer reviews given

Goal

Ship your first PR. It is small on purpose — the goal is to prove you can navigate the full workflow: branch → commit → CI → peer review → merge.

Monday

Read the codebase top to bottom. You do not need to understand every line, but you should be able to answer:

• What does app/main.py do?
• What are the two database models and what fields do they have?
• What routes does app/routes/jobs.py expose?
• What does a Jinja2 template look like (templates/base.html)?

Spend 30–45 minutes on this. You will write much better code if you understand what already exists.

Wednesday

Find your onboarding issue on GitHub:

1. Go to the repo → Issues → filter by Milestone: Onboarding
2. Find the issue titled [Onboarding] Add your name to CONTRIBUTORS.md and assign it to yourself
3. Create a branch:

git checkout -b feat/issue-N-add-yourusername-to-contributors

4. Add your row to CONTRIBUTORS.md:

| @yourgithubusername | Your Role | A fun fact about yourself |

5. Commit and push:

git add CONTRIBUTORS.md
git commit -m "Add @yourusername to CONTRIBUTORS.md"
git push origin feat/issue-N-add-yourusername-to-contributors

6. Open a pull request on GitHub. Fill out every section of the PR template. Write Closes #N in the summary.

CI will run automatically. Wait for it to go green before requesting reviews.

Thursday–Friday

• Request reviews from two classmates (message them directly if needed)
• Give two reviews on your classmates' PRs — go to the repo → Pull Requests and find open onboarding PRs
• Respond to any comments on your own PR within 24 hours
• Once you have 2 approvals and CI is green, merge your own PR

What makes a good review?

A review is not just clicking "Approve." Look for:

• Does the PR template have Closes #N? If not, ask them to add it.
• Does CI pass? If not, tell them what failed.
• Is the fun fact actually there? Is the table formatted correctly?
• Leave at least one comment — even a short "Looks good, left a formatting note" is better than a silent approve.

Week 2 checklist

• [ ] Onboarding PR is merged into main
• [ ] PR was linked to an issue (Closes #N in description)
• [ ] CI passed before merge (all checks green)
• [ ] You gave substantive reviews on 2 classmates' PRs
• [ ] Syllabus Quiz submitted in Canvas