Proposal for PR template

[jlowin]

Thanks for contributing to Prefect!

Please describe your work and make sure your PR:

• adds new tests (if appropriate)
• updates CHANGELOG.md (if appropriate)
• updates docs/outline.toml to include API docs for any new functions or arguments (if appropriate)

What does this PR change?

Why is this PR important?

[jlowin]

Arguments against this style of PR: it introduces noise because EVERY PR will have a checklist. However on balance I think it's helpful, especially for new contributors. Also we don't really seem to use checklists much otherwise.

[cicdw]

I can definitely see this being useful to first time contributors, especially if we actually had more boxes to tick. Not sure how much value this adds at this exact moment though, since the only thing it reminds users to do is describe the PR and update the CHANGELOG. Maybe a box for "adds appropriate tests"?

Let's discuss tomorrow.

[jlowin]

I agree with adds tests. However I think having the "What does this do?" and "Why is this important" headers is important. Even for people familiar with contributing, it's helpful to have these prompts -- I'm thinking of myself; I'm definitely guilty of skipping the "what" and "why" in some of my PRs. My experience is that especially with open-source projects, there's a lot of PRs which essentially say "Hey, read the code to know what changed!" and a small amount of prompts can mitigate that attitude.

[jlowin]

The flip side of that is sometimes you see these monstrosity PR templates where it's a whole page and as a contributor, you have to read it every time to figure out what you're supposed to do and where you're supposed to write it; as a maintainer you have to parse it every time to see what you wrote and what the contributor wrote... it's bad. I'd like to strike a balance between minimal guidance that leads to a more effective PR description.

[joshmeek]

I'm not opposed to this style of PR. Definitely the What/Why is much needed and the changelog checkbox to keep us in tune with updating it are nice to have

[joshmeek]

The more I look at the progress bars in the PRs the more I actually like it. I've seen in other repositories where PR creators have slash commands like /ready_for_review but the checkboxes seem to satisfy just that.

[joshmeek]

I'm cool with this for now

[cicdw]

Could you add a checkbox for "updates docs/outline.toml if any new public methods / functions (or 'user-facing methods / functions') were added"

[jlowin]

@cicdw thoughts on new update?