Most engineering teams rely on pull request descriptions to provide context during code reviews.

And for small changes, that's often enough.

But as teams grow, pull requests become larger, stakeholders become more diverse, and review cycles become more expensive.

A few paragraphs of text often fail to communicate the full story behind a change.

That's why more teams are introducing pull request walkthroughs alongside traditional PR descriptions. Many are now adopting AI pull request walkthroughs that generate explanations automatically from pull requests.

The question isn't whether PR descriptions are useful.

The question is whether they're sufficient.

1. What Is a PR Description?

A PR description is the written summary attached to a pull request.

It typically includes:

• The purpose of the change
• Related tickets
• Testing instructions
• Additional implementation notes

A good description helps reviewers understand the scope of a change before reading the code.

Most engineering teams already use PR templates to standardize this process.

2. What Is a Pull Request Walkthrough?

A pull request walkthrough is a guided explanation of the pull request.

Instead of relying solely on text, the author explains:

• Why the change was made
• What problem it solves
• Which files matter most
• What reviewers should focus on
• Any important technical decisions

Walkthroughs are often delivered as short videos and can be created manually or generated automatically by AI.

If you're new to the concept, start with our guide on what a pull request walkthrough is and how teams use them during reviews.

3. Why PR Descriptions Often Fall Short

PR descriptions solve part of the problem.

They don't solve all of it.

Consider a pull request that:

• Modifies 25 files
• Changes authentication behavior
• Introduces a new onboarding flow
• Affects multiple teams

Even a well-written description struggles to communicate:

• User impact
• Technical tradeoffs
• Architectural reasoning
• Areas requiring special attention

The reviewer still needs to reconstruct much of the story.

This creates unnecessary review friction.

4. Pull Request Walkthroughs vs PR Descriptions

The difference is simple:

PR descriptions communicate information.

Walkthroughs communicate understanding.

5. The Real Problem: Context Doesn't Scale

As engineering teams adopt AI coding tools, pull request volume continues to increase.

Research from Jellyfish found that organizations with full AI coding adoption experience a 113% increase in pull request throughput, while pull requests become 18.2% larger on average.

More pull requests means more review work.

Larger pull requests mean more context reviewers must understand.

Written descriptions don't necessarily scale with this increased complexity.

Walkthroughs help bridge that gap.

6. When a PR Description Is Enough

Not every pull request needs a walkthrough.

A simple PR description may be sufficient when:

• The change is small
• The reviewer is familiar with the codebase
• No cross-functional stakeholders are involved
• The business impact is minimal

For small bug fixes, text often works perfectly well.

7. When You Should Add a Walkthrough

Walkthroughs become valuable when:

The Pull Request Is Large

The larger the change, the more context reviewers need.

Product Managers Need Visibility

Product stakeholders rarely want to inspect code.

A walkthrough helps them understand outcomes instead.

Multiple Teams Are Involved

Cross-functional reviews often require additional explanation.

Architectural Decisions Matter

Tradeoffs are easier to explain than document.

User Experience Changes

Visual demonstrations communicate behavior better than text.

Teams can record these manually or use AI to generate them automatically. Here's how to create pull request walkthrough videos that reviewers actually watch.

8. Why Product Teams Prefer Walkthroughs

One of the biggest advantages of walkthroughs is accessibility.

A Product Manager can watch a three-minute walkthrough and immediately understand:

• What changed
• Why it changed
• Whether requirements were implemented correctly

The same understanding might take significantly longer to achieve through code review alone.

This makes walkthroughs particularly useful for organizations where Product teams need visibility without reviewing implementation details. Learn how Product Managers can review pull requests without reading code.

9. AI Changes the Equation

Historically, walkthroughs required additional work.

Engineers needed to schedule demos or record videos manually.

As a result, most teams skipped them.

AI changes this.

Modern AI agents can:

• Read pull requests
• Understand code changes
• Generate explanations
• Create walkthrough videos automatically
• Post them directly into the review workflow

The cost of creating walkthroughs is rapidly approaching zero. The additional benefit is that these walkthroughs can later be reused as documentation. Many teams now turn pull requests into video documentation automatically as part of their development workflow.

Which means teams can provide context consistently rather than occasionally.

10 The Best Approach: Use Both

The debate isn't really PR descriptions versus walkthroughs.

The strongest engineering teams use both.

A description provides quick reference information.

A walkthrough provides context.

This combination works especially well in async pull request reviews, where reviewers need enough information to begin reviewing without scheduling a meeting.

Together they create a review process that is easier to understand, easier to review, and easier to scale.

Think of the description as documentation.

Think of the walkthrough as communication.

You need both.

Conclusion

PR descriptions remain an important part of code review.

But as pull requests become larger and development velocity increases, written summaries alone often struggle to communicate the full story behind a change.

Pull request walkthroughs help fill that gap.

They make reviews easier to understand, improve collaboration between Product and Engineering, and create reusable knowledge for future teams.

As AI-generated walkthroughs become more common, they are likely to become a standard companion to traditional PR descriptions rather than a replacement for them.

Source

Jellyfish – AI-Assisted Pull Requests Are 18% Larger