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Preparing your Pull Request for Platform Review

Last Updated: August 14, 2026

As you develop new applications and features on VA.gov you will need to have your code reviewed by Platform engineers. This helps ensure quality and stable work is being produced. This page provides the steps for preparing a pull request for Platform review.

Prepare your Pull Request for Platform review

Below are some tactics for ensuring your pull request is reviewed in a timely manner.

Deadline planning

Ensure that you have planned enough time to meet your deadlines and have accounted for the review time in that timeline (maximum of 3 business days to review a PR).

Note: The 3 business day clock starts after all the below requirements have been satisfied. We cannot guarantee a PR can be pushed through due to lack of planning.

Requirements for review

A Pull Request will be added to the review queue when all criteria below is met:

  1. A team member has reviewed and approved your pull request

    1. Other code owner approvals are not required before a Platform Review.

  2. All required CI checks are passing

    1. If you are having trouble passing your checks, Platform Support can help

  3. The PR is set to Ready for Review, and requested review from the appropriate Community of Practice (ie: frontend, backend, devops)

  4. Merge conflicts resolved

  5. If your team uses Jira, a screenshot of the issue is in the PR description (Platform cannot see Jira tickets)

Note: If you have not met these requirements, there may be a delay in the review of your PR.

How to get your PR reviewed by Platform

  1. Create a Draft pull request and have your team review it.

  2. Resolve issues flagged by automated code checks. Unresolved issues may block your code from being merged.

  3. Once a peer has reviewed your code, no merge conflict, and CI is passing, mark your pull request as Ready for Review. At this point you wait for a Platform engineer to review your code. (Code is reviewed within 3 business days.)
    Note: For frontend PRs, the additional automated checks can trigger a review from the va-platform-cop-frontend, even for code owners. For backend PRs, see Vets API PR tips.

  4. Resolve all review comments from the Platform engineer.
    Note: Once the Pull Request is resubmitted with changes, we will make our best effort to re-review as soon as possible, but changes do reset the 3-day clock.

How to get your PR reviewed by non-Platform teams

  1. Review the code owners in the Merge Box at the bottom of your PR. This will list what team approvals are required. The reviewer list at the top of PRs is not always accurate. Use the Merge Box at the bottom for the definitive list.

  2. Once you’ve identified the required teams, you can view their team on GitHub

    1. for example: https://va.ghe.com/orgs/software/teams/health-apps-backend

    2. All teams can be found at https://va.ghe.com/orgs/software/teams

  3. Teams often have their Slack channel in the GitHub Team description, if not:

    1. Search Slack for the team name–many teams have a similar-named Slack channel.

    2. You can reach out to someone on the Team page to help direct you to the right Slack channel.

  4. Once you have the right Slack channel, post a message asking for a review.

  5. If you have difficulty getting a review from a team, please reach out to your VA Product Owner and they can talk to the other team’s VA Product Owner.

GitHub PR Merge Box. Located at the bottom of the PR page.
GitHub PR Merge Box

You can see in this image, a team member has already approved. There are two other code owners that need approval in this case: health-apps-backend and va-platform-backend. All va-platform-backend members are also backend-review-group members, so a review from one those members will satisfy both the team review and the “Backend Approval Check” check. More on “Backend Approval Check” in the next section.

Platform Backend can override additional review requirements in emergencies via #vfs-platform-support, but authors should seek actual code owner approval first.

Merge requirements

Platform repos use the built-in GitHub merge rules and requirements for enforcing mergeability. This means each PR must have at least 1 approver and approval from all required code owners. When an individual file or directory has multiple code owners, only one of them is required.

Vets API Caveat

PRs in vets-api have an additional approval requirement. backend-review-group must approve PRs to satisfy a Custom Commit Status called “Backend Approval Check”. Some PRs are exempt from this requirement. If that’s the case for your PR the “Backend Approval Check” check will pass and be green.

See How we use GitHub code owners for more information. The actual CODEOWNERS file can be found in vets-api here.

When to submit a Platform Support Request

Please refrain from submitting a ticket in #vfs-platform-support if your PR has been ready for Platform review (CI passing, no merge conflicts, teammate approved) for less than 3 business days. If your PR is older than 3 business days but does not meet the necessary requirements or has failing checks, the 3 business day period will reset.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in ensuring a smooth review process.

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