doc: Explain that low-effort pull requests may be closed #34388

pull maflcko wants to merge 1 commits into bitcoin:master from maflcko:2601-doc-low-effort changing 1 files +12 −0
  1. maflcko commented at 11:56 am on January 23, 2026: member

    Lately, there seems to be a rise in low-effort pull requests. For example, where a contributor does not seem to understand the changes they are submitting, or it becomes clear that they have not tested the changes at all.

    I don’t think such pull requests are helpful, as they extract precious review time, which could be better spent on reviewing pull requests by reviewers who care about understanding the changes they are submitting, and who ensure their changes are sound and tested.

    So document that such low-effort pull request may be closed.

  2. DrahtBot added the label Docs on Jan 23, 2026
  3. DrahtBot commented at 11:57 am on January 23, 2026: contributor

    The following sections might be updated with supplementary metadata relevant to reviewers and maintainers.

    Code Coverage & Benchmarks

    For details see: https://corecheck.dev/bitcoin/bitcoin/pulls/34388.

    Reviews

    See the guideline for information on the review process.

    Type Reviewers
    ACK l0rinc, willcl-ark, dergoegge, pinheadmz

    If your review is incorrectly listed, please copy-paste <!–meta-tag:bot-skip–> into the comment that the bot should ignore.

  4. maflcko force-pushed on Jan 23, 2026
  5. DrahtBot added the label CI failed on Jan 23, 2026
  6. dergoegge approved
  7. dergoegge commented at 12:07 pm on January 23, 2026: member
    ACK faa9e31a3b760a568f69dad72835f6926b310d3f
  8. willcl-ark commented at 12:07 pm on January 23, 2026: member
    I wonder if we might also want to take any inspiration from here? https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/pull/10412
  9. l0rinc commented at 12:19 pm on January 23, 2026: contributor

    I wonder if we might also want to take any inspiration from here? ghostty-org/ghostty#10412

    lol:

    This is not an anti-AI stance. This is an anti-idiot stance

  10. in CONTRIBUTING.md:349 in faa9e31a3b outdated 
    344@@ -338,6 +345,11 @@ reviewers that the changes warrant the review effort, and if reviewers are
345 "Concept NACK'ing" the PR, the author may need to present arguments and/or do
346 research backing their suggested changes.
347 
348+Moreover, if there is reasonable doubt that the pull request author does not
349+fully understand the changes they are submitting themselves, or if it becomes
    l0rinc commented at 12:22 pm on January 23, 2026: 
    0fully understand the changes they are submitting, or if it becomes
    maflcko commented at 12:39 pm on January 23, 2026:
    yeah, I know it reads a bit odd, but i guess i wanted to do it intentional, so that the word sticks out
  11. in CONTRIBUTING.md:350 in faa9e31a3b 
    344@@ -338,6 +345,11 @@ reviewers that the changes warrant the review effort, and if reviewers are
345 "Concept NACK'ing" the PR, the author may need to present arguments and/or do
346 research backing their suggested changes.
347 
348+Moreover, if there is reasonable doubt that the pull request author does not
349+fully understand the changes they are submitting themselves, or if it becomes
350+clear that they have not even tested the changes on a basic level themselves,
    l0rinc commented at 12:23 pm on January 23, 2026: 
    0clear that they have not tested the changes on a basic level,
    maflcko commented at 12:39 pm on January 23, 2026:
    thx, removed “even”
  12. maflcko commented at 12:24 pm on January 23, 2026: member

    I wonder if we might also want to take any inspiration from here? ghostty-org/ghostty#10412

    Yeah, I think there are many projects that have adopted an “AI” or “LLM” policy. However, forming those will sometimes be a heated debate. I think it is clear that the increase in low-effort pull requests is partly due to AI/LLMs. However, when it comes to putting this into the docs, I thought it would be clearer to formulate it in universal terms: Think about me adding the same paragraph in 2019; Would it make sense in the same way?

    So I’ll leave “AI/LLM” policy for someone else to propose. However, whatever the policy will be, I expect a good chunk of bikeshedding or spicy debates (recall #33662), so I’ll leave this out for now. I think we can just use common sense and clear thinking when it comes to such a policy, inspired by all the other policies in other open source projects, but we probably don’t need to put it in words? Likely, the smart people already have adopted such a policy, so there is no point in documenting it for them. And the “idiots” (to quote your link) won’t be reading the policy anyway, so there is likewise no point in documenting it for them.

  13. in CONTRIBUTING.md:82 in faa9e31a3b outdated 
    77@@ -78,6 +78,13 @@ The codebase is maintained using the "contributor workflow" where everyone
78 without exception contributes patch proposals using "pull requests" (PRs). This
79 facilitates social contribution, easy testing and peer review.
80 
81+Pull request authors must fully and confidently understand their own changes
82+and must have tested them. Contributors should mention which test covers their
    l0rinc commented at 12:24 pm on January 23, 2026: 
    0and must have tested them. Contributors should mention which tests cover their
    maflcko commented at 12:38 pm on January 23, 2026:
    one test should be sufficient, so i’ll leave as-is for now.
    l0rinc commented at 12:58 pm on January 23, 2026:
    I’m fine with both, but often plural serves as one-or-more, e.g.: “Contributors should list which files they modified” - would be weird to say “which file they modified” since it’s not uncommon to have multiple.
  14. l0rinc commented at 12:27 pm on January 23, 2026: contributor
    ACK faa9e31a3b760a568f69dad72835f6926b310d3f
  15. pinheadmz commented at 12:30 pm on January 23, 2026: member

    concept ACK and I gotta say @maflcko i am very impressed with your sense to sniff out AI code. Especially when accompanied by AI descriptions, which make the actual amount of effort involved harder to know.

    We already have GitHub protection from new contributors (actions require permission) but I wonder if there should be an extra requirement for new contributors, maybe like pasting the output of them running tests locally. I guess that can be forged as well but at least it’s one more thing.

  16. maflcko force-pushed on Jan 23, 2026
  17. maflcko commented at 12:41 pm on January 23, 2026: member

    I wonder if there should be an extra requirement for new contributors, maybe like pasting the output of them running tests locally. I guess that can be forged as well but at least it’s one more thing.

    It should be trivial for DrahtBot to send a comment for all first-time pull requests, but it may also be distracting. Maybe there can be a template and then the first reviewer to stumble over the pull submits it manually?

  18. l0rinc commented at 12:59 pm on January 23, 2026: contributor
    ACK fae96174ab97083a5674e41fd92c38bcc799b132
  19. DrahtBot requested review from dergoegge on Jan 23, 2026
  20. DrahtBot requested review from pinheadmz on Jan 23, 2026
  21. willcl-ark approved
  22. willcl-ark commented at 1:12 pm on January 23, 2026: member
    ACK fae96174ab97083a5674e41fd92c38bcc799b132
  23. doc: Explain that low-effort pull requests may be closed fa15a8d2d0
  24. maflcko force-pushed on Jan 23, 2026
  25. l0rinc commented at 1:35 pm on January 23, 2026: contributor
    ACK fa15a8d2d03b0099b97262e47a8cbf685c29dd49
  26. DrahtBot requested review from willcl-ark on Jan 23, 2026
  27. willcl-ark commented at 1:54 pm on January 23, 2026: member
    ACK fa15a8d2d03b0099b97262e47a8cbf685c29dd49
  28. dergoegge approved
  29. dergoegge commented at 2:08 pm on January 23, 2026: member
    ACK fa15a8d2d03b0099b97262e47a8cbf685c29dd49
  30. kanzure commented at 2:37 pm on January 23, 2026: contributor

    I wonder if we might also want to take any inspiration from here? https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/pull/10412

    I saw another project that simply disallowed contributions from non-contributors (HN 1, 2). So you’d have to actually work with the contributors before opening issues or pull requests. ghostty disallows issue creation by non-contributors. I don’t know what the best strategy is to handle these issues (or do I?).

  31. DrahtBot removed the label CI failed on Jan 23, 2026
  32. pinheadmz approved
  33. pinheadmz commented at 2:55 pm on January 23, 2026: member
    ACK fa15a8d2d0
  34. fanquake merged this on Jan 26, 2026
  35. fanquake closed this on Jan 26, 2026
  36. maflcko deleted the branch on Jan 26, 2026
  37. janb84 commented at 10:16 am on January 26, 2026: contributor

    Post merge ACK fa15a8d2d03b0099b97262e47a8cbf685c29dd49

    The project needs to protect itself against the wall of (well intentioned) but low / no quality pr’s. Having this policy will not help directly against ppl making sloppy PR’s but we have to make a stance.


maflcko DrahtBot dergoegge willcl-ark l0rinc pinheadmz kanzure janb84


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