Gitea treats a `WIP:` title prefix as a draft marker and refuses to merge
while it's present. Verified empirically against this instance by
temporarily retitling PR #123: the API flipped `draft` to true and
`mergeable` to false, and both reverted when the prefix was removed.
The distinction from the verification merge gate is the point, so it's
stated explicitly in both files: `WIP:` means more code changes are
coming, NOT "finished but unverified". A complete branch with unticked
`## Verification` boxes is an ordinary PR — that case is already covered
by the merge gate and does not want the prefix. The two signals are
independent and can occur in any combination.
Documented as a merge rule under Branching & Pull Requests, next to the
verification gate, and in the template's title guidance where an author
picking a title will actually encounter it.
The old name implied the list was only for by-hand steps, which sat badly
with the fact that most entries in practice are programmatic — the test
suite, `fish_indent`, `docs/verify-manual.py`, CI. Dropping "Manual" lets
one list carry both kinds, and gives the checkbox state real meaning:
- **Checked** — verified, whether it ran programmatically or the author
performed it by hand.
- **Unchecked** — an outstanding manual check the reviewer still has to
perform. Left visible rather than dropped.
- **The list is the merge gate.** A PR isn't merged until every box is
checked; added as an explicit rule under Branching & Pull Requests
alongside the other merge rules.
Because unchecked boxes now block the merge, the guidance also states that
only resolvable checks belong here — one nobody can run would block the PR
indefinitely. Genuinely unverifiable caveats and assumptions go in
`## Notes`, which already existed in the optional-sections list.
Incidentally realigns with PRs 121-122, which had already shortened the
heading to `## Verification`; that part of the recent drift was right.
The repo has no issue-tracking history yet — a grep across all 122 prior
PRs found zero `Closes #N` references — so this is forward-looking rather
than derived from precedent. Establishing it now means the first PR that
does close an issue has a rule to follow instead of inventing one.
- Placement is a trailing line at the end of `## Summary`, not the bottom
of the body, because `## Manual Verification` is always last.
- `Fixes`/`Resolves` noted as equivalent; `Refs #N` for a related issue
that should stay open.
- Guidance calls out that the keyword must be repeated per issue, since a
bare `#43` after a comma links without closing.
- Lives in the template's HTML comments, so a PR with no associated issue
leaves no stray `Closes #` behind.
Also drops an unverified claim that the GitHub mirror pre-loads the
template; PRs are opened on Gitea, and the mirror is push-only.
Codifies the PR body format the repo has converged on across its first
122 pull requests, which until now lived only as an implicit pattern
agents and contributors had to reverse-engineer from prior PRs.
- **`.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md`** — `## Summary`, optional `##`
sections, then `## Manual Verification` as a checkbox list. Gitea falls
back to `.github/` when `.gitea/` is absent, and the GitHub mirror reads
the same path, so one file covers both.
- **`CONTRIBUTING.md`** — new "Pull request descriptions" subsection under
Branching & Pull Requests, documenting the same three-part structure.
Section names were chosen by frequency across all 122 PRs: `## Summary`
(86) and `## Manual Verification` (63) are the clear majority. The later
`## Manual Verification Checklist` (12, PRs 90-113), `## Test plan` (11)
and `## Verification` (3, PRs 121-122) variants are drift away from that
baseline, not a newer standard, so the template restores the dominant
form. Checkboxes ship unchecked but are meant to be checked before the
PR opens, matching the 585-to-12 ratio of `[x]` to `[ ]` in merged PRs.
rootiest