Reviewing Stacks

Stacked PRs look and feel like regular pull requests, just smaller. You don’t need to install anything or learn new tools to review them.

Each stacked PR contains a single commit’s worth of changes. At the top of every PR, a stack comment shows the full chain and highlights the current PR:

The comment includes links to every PR in the stack, so you can jump between them.

Review the stack in order, starting with the first PR (the one targeting main). Each subsequent PR builds on the previous one, so reviewing in order gives you the narrative of the change.

Unlike a single large PR, each stacked PR’s diff contains only the changes from its corresponding commit, not the accumulated changes of the entire branch:

• PR #1 shows the data model changes
• PR #2 shows only the API endpoint, not the model + endpoint
• PR #3 shows only the tests, not everything combined

You review small, focused diffs instead of trying to parse hundreds of lines at once.

Use the links in the stack comment to move between PRs. The current PR is marked in the list so you always know where you are in the chain.

Review comments work exactly like any other PR:

• Leave inline comments on specific lines
• Request changes or approve
• Use GitHub’s review features normally

When the author addresses your feedback, they’ll rebase and push. The PR updates in place, and your review comments stay attached to the relevant lines.

Stacked PRs merge bottom-up. The first PR in the stack (targeting main) merges first. Once it lands, the next PR’s base automatically updates to main, and you can review and merge that one. Each PR in turn, working up the chain.

You don’t need to merge the entire stack at once. If the first two PRs are approved but the third needs more work, merge the first two and let the author continue iterating on the rest.