When considering the adoption of any new tool or workflow, it’s important to look beyond the surface and understand the potential it may offer your teams. In this guide, we'll explore why your team should consider embracing Graphite and the stacked PR workflow.
What is Graphite?
Graphite is a developer tool designed to accelerate and enhance the code review process. Among other capabilities, it enables teams to use stacked pull requests (PRs), a workflow where changes are split into smaller, logically connected units. Stacked PRs make it easier to review, test, and merge incremental changes, which reduces complexity and improves productivity. With Graphite, teams can maintain cleaner commit histories and accelerate their development cycles while ensuring high code quality.
Here are some of the other benefits:
1. Enhanced code review efficiency
Streamlined reviews lead to better code. Stacking enables developers to break down changes into smaller, logical units, making each pull request more focused and manageable. This approach minimizes cognitive load during reviews, reduces the risk of errors, and fosters a culture of high-quality, maintainable code. With stacking, teams can also catch issues earlier, iterate faster, and build a more robust codebase.
2. Increased productivity
Never wait to keep coding. With stacked PRs, developers can work on subsequent tasks while earlier changes are still under review. This parallel workflow eliminates the downtime caused by traditional monolithic reviews, ensuring a steady development pace. By allowing engineers to stay in the flow of coding, Graphite helps teams consistently meet deadlines without sacrificing quality.
3. Simplified conflict resolution
Make merges a breeze. Smaller, incremental changes inherently reduce the likelihood of conflicts, and when conflicts do occur, they are more straightforward to resolve. This means less time spent untangling complex merges and more time dedicated to building new features. Stacked diffs provide developers with the clarity and control needed to handle conflicts efficiently, leading to a smoother development process.
4. Better traceability and accountability
Know who did what and why. Stacked PRs create a clear, detailed record of each incremental change, making it easy to trace the origin and intent behind every modification. This transparency not only creates accountability within the team but also simplifies debugging and knowledge sharing. Teams can maintain a strong audit trail while fostering trust and alignment in their workflows.
5. Full utilization of modern tools
Graphite’s powerful features are a game-changer. Designed specifically to manage stacked diffs, Graphite simplifies workflows, automates repetitive tasks, and ensures the review process is as seamless as possible. By leveraging its advanced capabilities, developers can focus on writing quality code rather than managing tedious administrative work.
6. Practical implementation
Experience seamless feature rollouts. Stacked PRs enable teams to break features into discrete backend, API, and UI components, allowing each to be developed, tested, and reviewed independently. This layered approach reduces integration risks, accelerates deployment timelines, and ensures every part of the feature is fully optimized before release.
7. Scalability
Prepare for your project’s future. As projects grow, so does the challenge of managing increasingly complex codebases. Stacked diffs offer a scalable solution by keeping changes modular and organized, reducing the chaos of large-scale updates. This structure supports smooth collaboration across growing teams and evolving projects.
8. Minimized Technical Debt
Stay ahead of technical debt. Frequent, incremental updates enabled by stacked PRs naturally address technical debt as part of the development process. By avoiding the build-up of large, unchecked changes, teams can maintain cleaner, more maintainable codebases, saving time and effort in the long run.
9. Organized codebase
Adopt a method that promotes order. Stacking naturally encourages a modular, disciplined approach to development. Instead of dealing with sprawling, unwieldy updates, teams work with well-defined, self-contained changes. This approach not only leads to a cleaner, more navigable repository, but also fosters a culture of thoughtful architecture and maintainable code. The result is a codebase that’s easier to understand, troubleshoot, and enhance over time.
10. Cultural advancement
Lead the charge in development practices. Embracing Graphite and stacking signals a commitment to modern, forward-thinking engineering standards. It shifts team habits from reactive to proactive, emphasizing continuous improvement, accountability, and craftsmanship. By elevating your practices, you create an environment where developers thrive, code quality flourishes, and innovation becomes the norm.
Summary
Switching to Graphite and stacked PRs isn’t just about speeding up code reviews—it’s about refining every aspect of your development process. This modern workflow transforms how you collaborate, resolve conflicts, and maintain code quality, allowing your team to consistently deliver cleaner, more reliable features. In short, it’s an investment in lasting excellence that will elevate every line of code you write. If you're interested in trying out Graphite and simplifying your code reviews, sign up for your free trial here.