Etiquette of GitHub Contributing, Pull Requests vs New Issue

Question

I was wondering what the proper etiquette to contributing on GitHub is?

Should you submit a "New Issue" first and discuss the problem?

Or do you take some initiative, code, then do a "Pull Request" and discuss the code further there?

My concern with creating a "New Issue" first is that if you do a "Pull Request" after, there would be two issues #'s created... seems like a waste.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The difference is quite clear:

• if you don't think you can contribute back a patch, open a new issue (following the same kind of checklist than the one described here).
• if you think you can make some patch to fix the issue, fork the repo, and make a pull request (once you have pushed your patch back to your fork).

If you make a pull issue first, and then create a pull request, nothing stops you to reference the issue URL in your pull request comment, in order to avoid writing again the context of your patch.