readthedocs / readthedocs/addons

Docdiff: use pull request base branch for comparison

Open
#643 3 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Feature Needed: design decision
Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
48
Forks
29
Avg merge
3d 18h
Merged PRs (30d)
6

Description

Assuming we get the base branch from pull requests events on all of our provider integrations, we should be able to set the addons configuration for the docdiff base url on a pull request basis. This covers the use case of pull requests that have varying base branches and patterns like maintaining docs for multiple minor versions -- eg pull requests might base from a 1.x, 2.x, or 3.x branch.

We've discussed this in the past and there are some hurdles to implementing this, namely that the base branch might not be an active version. So at least we need to check for that and probably fall back to a version that is active. Are there other problems with this approach?

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing pull request event handling across the provider integrations and where the docdiff base URL is configured. Check how base branches map to active documentation versions, including inactive branches and fallback behavior. Done means pull requests targeting different version branches select the appropriate active docdiff base or a defined fallback.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript
Domain
documentation
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.