A team is blocked when every pull request waits for one senior developer. Pull request privilege is the authorization to approve a pull request, and teams can assign it broadly or restrict it by person, group, or change type. Start by deciding who may approve and how many approvals a merge requires; add finer rules only when the team needs them. section 3.3.4 section 8.1
Choose an approval model that matches the team’s context:
- Give every development team member approval privileges, including newer or junior developers, so review responsibility does not bottleneck around seniority. section 8.1
- Use granular permissions when needed: one group may view a pull request, another may approve it, or approval may depend on the affected pull requests. section 3.3.4
- Support broad approval with safeguards such as continuous integration checks, unit and integration tests, staged environments, easy reverts, and shared accountability. section 8.1
- Document consequences for serious violations, such as revoking privileges after unauthorized self-approval, and raise violations in retrospectives or one-on-ones. section 4.4.8
Replacing the senior-review bottleneck
A team formerly waited for its sole senior developer to approve every pull request. It expands approval privileges to the whole development team, keeps automated checks and tests mandatory, and makes each approver accountable for helping resolve problems. The team then records that unauthorized self-approval can revoke the privilege. section 8.1 section 4.4.8
