Time to first comment is the average time in hours between when pull requests are created to when they receive their first comment, rounded to the nearest tenth of an hour.
Note: If you set Pull request tracking to First commented, your Time to first comment will always be zero. Change this setting on the configurations page.
Which reports use Time to first comment?
Time to first comment is a featured metric in Team health insights, Check-in, and PR resolution.
Some reports, like Work log or PR resolution, include Time to first comment when viewing individual PRs. For individual PR views in these reports, Time to first comment may be represented in minutes, hours, or days.
Depending on the report, you might be able to view Time to first comment for individual PRs that have not been merged. When Time to first comment is represented in aggregate, it is only based on merged PRs.
What does Time to first comment measure?
Time to first comment tells you how long a pull request is waiting before someone reviews it.
Note: Time to first comment is calculated using the creation date of the PR and includes any time the PR spent in draft status. If your organization regularly uses draft PRs as part of your process, your Time to first comment will likely be longer than others.
Focusing on this metric helps you reduce waste, cycle time, and context switching. This is a popular metric for Lean software development and Kanban practitioners who focus on flow efficiency.
There are a few variables that affect how you think about this metric for your team:
- Do your team members share similar time zones?
- Do your PRs need reviews across multiple teams?
If your PRs are internal to a single team, and you have good communication, your Time to first comment will typically be lower. If your PRs contain changes that span multiple teams, shared components, or shared databases, your Time to first comment may be higher.
How is Time to first comment calculated?
Time to first comment is calculated as the sum of all Times to first comment for all merged pull requests created by included individuals divided by the total number of merged pull requests created by included individuals.
Note: You could also represent this as sum(Time to first comment for all merged pull requests created by included individuals)/Total number of merged pull requests created by included individuals.
This average is rounded to the nearest tenth of an hour.
This calculation is the same whether calculating Time to first comment for an individual, a team, or an organization.
PRs count toward a team’s Time to first comment if someone on the team either authors the PR or reviews the PR.
What data is included in Time to first comment?
A pull request counts toward Time to first comment as long as it is merged and has a comment before it’s merged. It does not matter whether it’s merged from one feature branch to another or is merged into the main branch. Only pull requests with non-zero values for Time to first comment are included in the calculation.
Pull requests are not counted toward Time to first comment if:
- the PR's author is excluded from reports
- the PR was created by a hidden user
- the PR is an excluded pull request
- the PR is from a deleted repository
Comments on pull requests won’t be counted toward Time to first comment if:
- The comment is excluded
- The comment's author is excluded from reports
- The comment's author is a hidden user
- The comment's author is the same as the PR author
If your integration vendor has approval-type comments, those comments count toward Time to first comment. If their approvals are not comment types, they do not count toward Time to first comment.
Note: User view rights and permissions also impact how specific users will see Time to first comment.