Streamlining Collaboration: Pull Requests in AWS CodeCommit Repositories

Introduction

Creating a pull request allows other users to see and review your code changes before merging them into another branch. First, you create a branch for your code changes. This is called the source branch of the pull request. Once you have committed and pushed your changes to your repository, you can create a pull request to compare the contents of this branch (the source branch) with the branch you want to merge the changes into (the target branch) after the pull request is closed.
You can use the AWS CodeCommit console or the AWS CLI to create a pull request for your repository.

Pull Request requires two branches

A source branch that contains the code you want to review and a target branch that you merge the reviewed code into. The source branch contains NA commits, which contain the changes to be merged into the target branch. The target branch contains BEFORE commits, which represent the state of the code before the pull request branch was merged into the target branch. The choice of merge affects the details of how commits are merged between the root and target branch in the CodeCommit console. For more information about merge strategies in CodeCommit, see Merging Pull Requests (Console).

Pull requests display the difference between the source branch point and the last commit on the target branch when the pull request was created so that users can review and comment on changes. You can update pull requests in response to feedback by committing changes to the source branch and submitting them.

When your code has been reviewed and meets the approval rule requirements (if any), you can close the pull request in one of the following ways:

• Merge the branch locally and push your changes. It automatically closes the request if there are no merge conflicts and the quick merge strategy is used.
• Use the AWS CodeCommit console to close a pull request without merging, resolve conflicts in the merge, or, if there are no conflicts, close and merge the branch using one of the fusion strategies available.
• Using the AWS CLI.

Before creating a pull request:

• Ensure you have committed the code changes you want to review in the branch (source branch).
• Set up notifications for your repository so other users can be notified of pull requests and their changes. (This step is optional but recommended.)
• Create an approval rule template and associate it with your repository to automatically create approval rules for pull requests to ensure code quality. For more information, see Using Approval Rule Templates.

Merge a Pull Request in an AWS CodeCommit repository

Once your code has been reviewed and meets all approval rules (if applicable) for the pull request, you can merge the pull request in one of the following ways:

• You can merge the source branch with the target branch using the console an available merge policy, which also closes pull requests. You can also resolve merge conflicts in the console. The console displays a message indicating whether the pull request can be merged or whether the conflicts need to be resolved. Once all conflicts are resolved, and Merge is selected, the merge will be performed using your chosen merge strategy. Fast-forward is the default merge strategy, which is Git’s default option.
• Depending on the state of the code in the source and target branches, this strategy may not be available, but other options may be available, such as squash or 3-way.
• The AWS CLI can merge and close pull requests using fast-forward, overwrite, or three-way merge strategies.
• On your local machine, you can use the git merge command to merge the source branch into the target branch, then push the merged code to the target branch. This approach has some drawbacks that you need to consider carefully. It merges pull requests, bypassing these checks, whether or not they meet the requirements of the pull request approval rules.
• Additionally, merging and pushing to the target branch automatically closes the pull request if you merge a pull request with a quick merge strategy. One of the benefits of this approach is that the git merge command lets you choose options or merge strategies that aren’t available in the CodeCommit console.

Close a Pull Request in an AWS CodeCommit repository

If you want to close a pull request without integration, you can do so in one of several ways:

• You can close the pull request in the console without a joint venture. You may want to do this if you need to merge branches using the git merge command manually or if the code in the pull request branch is not the code you want to merge into the target branch.
• You can remove the branch specified in the pull request. CodeCommit automatically closes a pull request if its source or destination is deleted.
• In the AWS CLI, you can change the status of a pull request from open to closed.
• This will close the pull request without integration.

You can close a pull request in the CodeCommit repository using the CodeCommit console. Once the status of a pull request changes to Closed, it cannot be changed back to On, but users can still comment on changes and reply to comments.

• Under Pool, select the pool name.
• Select Apply in the navigation pane and drag.
• By default, a list of all pull requests is displayed. Select the open pull request to close.

• Under Pull Request, select Close Pull Request. This option closes the pull request without merging the root and target branches. This option does not allow you to delete the branch in the pull request closing process, but you can do it yourself after the pull request is closed.

Conclusion

Pull requests encourage best practices and code quality standards. During the review process, team members can identify and address potential issues, such as bugs, security vulnerabilities, or performance bottlenecks.

By opening a pull request, team members can review and discuss proposed changes, ensuring that the final code is high quality and aligns with the project’s goals.

By incorporating pull requests into your AWS-powered blog development workflow, you can enhance collaboration, maintain code quality, streamline deployments, and leverage the scalability and flexibility of the AWS ecosystem.

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