mod-playerbots/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md at a8dda550ad0c7405d5b7a3e4986b8f48c6cf1a83

NoxMax 1a3468368d PR template proposal, using the proposed template itself (#2170 )

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DESIGN PHILOSOPHY: We prioritize STABILITY, PERFORMANCE, AND
PREDICTABILITY over behavioral realism.

Every action and decision executes PER BOT AND PER TRIGGER. Small
increases in logic complexity scale
poorly across thousands of bots and negatively affect all. We prioritize
a stable system over a smarter
one. Bots don't need to behave perfectly; believable behavior is the
goal, not human simulation.
Default behavior must be cheap in processing; expensive behavior must be
opt-in.

Before submitting, make sure your changes aligns with these principles.
-->

## Pull Request Description

The addition of a PR template last month was a great idea. We had
nothing before and just let people type whatever they thought was
relevant. Some wrote a whole article with too many details, and some
just wrote the title and didn't explain any of the important details.

So the addition of the PR template makes sure contributors know what's
most important to this project. However, several people thought the
template was... a lot. A lot of the information it showed, while useful
to the contributor, made it a bit confusing to reviewer to know what the
contributor wrote, and what is part of the PR template, so a lot of
these guidelines have now been put behind ``.

Moreover, even what has been hidden, has been truncated. The main
message of the guidelines is stability is our top priority. It is a
critical message, but it was repeated several more times than it
should've been. Less is more here, and if an important message is
repeated in a verbose manner, people would gloss over it like scrolling
down long terms and conditions. The questions were also made more
concise and explicit. We don't want contributors to question the
questions themselves and how do they even apply to their code.

The process of PR submission itself should not feel like submitting a
long bureaucratic form. Think of it like a scientific paper abstract: It
gives a reasonably short summary explaining the work, as clearly as
possible.

## Feature Evaluation

- Describe the **minimum logic** required to achieve the intended
behavior.
- Describe the **processing cost** when this logic executes across many
bots.

These are the core questions that are important to know, but even then,
not always relevant. So a note was added to the contributor that they
can obviously skip these if their PR is something like a comment edit or
whatever else that clearly doesn't add processing.

## How to Test the Changes

You are already testing whether or not this template is effective by
looking at it.

1. See
the"[Preview](https://github.com/NoxMax/mod-playerbots/blob/PR-template-proposal/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md)"
of the file just so it's clear what the template is like without any of
the comments I made here.
2. See the
"[Code](https://github.com/NoxMax/mod-playerbots/blob/PR-template-proposal/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md?plain=1)"
section of the template to see how it would actually look to a
contributor. The only difference is the alignment of the translation
table; it looks weird in the .md file, but it would look properly
aligned to the contributor when submitting.

## Impact Assessment

- Does this change increase per-bot/per-tick processing or risk scaling
poorly with thousands of bots?
- [x] No, not at all
- [ ] Minimal impact (**explain below**)
- [ ] Moderate impact (**explain below**)

Broke down processing impact into minimal and moderate. It is not
uncommon that we have changes that add some minimal processing, and yes,
collectively they can become an issue, but we also need to distinguish
them from the rare changes that have a moderate impact, and how critical
those changes are.

- Does this change modify default bot behavior?
- [x] No
- [ ] Yes (**explain why**)

- Does this change add new decision branches or increase maintenance
complexity?
- [x] No
- [ ] Yes (**explain below**)

This question merges two previous one, because it's really asking the
same thing: Will your change be a headache to maintain down the line?

## Messages to Translate

Does this change add bot messages to translate?
- [x] No
- [ ] Yes (**list messages in the table**)

| Message key | Default message |
| --------------- | ------------------ |
| | |
| | |

This is a new section, based on an idea that was discuss to not have
everyone add their SQL translation files to their PR, and figure out
file date name based on merge order, and coordinate who's using which
message key. No. The hidden instruction instead tell the contributor to
prerp the code to be translatable, by looking up GetBotTextOrDefault in
the codebase for examples, and leave it that.
When merged it would just use the default English fallback, then a
monthly PR can be made containing translations for all the recently
merged commits that have bot messages. The code would then automatically
pickup the translated lines for that.
This section of the template would remain if there's a consensus that
this is how the translation workflow should be.

## AI Assistance

Was AI assistance used while working on this change?
- [x] No
- [ ] Yes (**explain below**)

## Final Checklist

- [x] Stability is not compromised.
- [x] Performance impact is understood, tested, and acceptable.
- [x] Added logic complexity is justified and explained.
- [x] Documentation updated if needed (Code comments, Conf comments,
Commands in the Wiki).

Final checklist remains the same, only clarifies to the contributors
what sort of documentations that need updating.

## Notes for Reviewers

This is a literal draft of of what the template should be, in that I
look forward to your ideas to any ways that can further improve this.

3.4 KiB Raw Blame History

Pull Request Description

Feature Evaluation

How to Test the Changes

Impact Assessment

Messages to Translate

AI Assistance

Final Checklist

Notes for Reviewers

3.4 KiB

Raw Blame History