What should a junior developer check before opening a pull request?

Quick answer

Before opening a pull request, compare the change with the intended behaviour, inspect the diff, run relevant checks and explain what a reviewer should verify. A small coherent change is easier to assess than unrelated cleanup mixed with a feature.

Inspect the change

Use git diff to inspect unstaged tracked changes and git diff --cached to inspect staged changes. Neither replaces checking git status for new untracked files.

git status --short
git diff
git diff --cached

Look for accidental generated files, credentials, debug output and unrelated edits. Do not paste secret values into a review description or test log.

Try it yourself

Write a three-sentence review note: the problem, the resulting behaviour and the checks you ran. Include a concrete before-and-after example when behaviour changed.

Common mistake

“Tests pass” is incomplete evidence when no test covers the changed path. Name the behaviour exercised, and disclose checks you could not run.

Check your understanding

Would you include a formatting rewrite of every file in a small bug fix? Usually defer it so the behavioural change remains visible.

Next step

Use the feature completion guide before requesting approval.

Sources and further reading

• Git documentation: git diff

Published 2 November 2026. Examples are teaching exercises, not claims about client results.