diff --git a/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md b/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..552105c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+## Summary
+<what changed and why>
+
+## Related issues
+Closes: 
+
+## Testing
+<how you validated behavior — automated tests or manual reproduction>
+
+## Checklist
+- [ ] PR is focused on a single concern
+- [ ] Tests pass locally and in CI
+- [ ] Docs updated for user-visible changes
+- [ ] AI-assisted portions declared (see [CONTRIBUTING.md](https://github.com/RMI/.github/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md))
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 65cc029..de8d8a5 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -2,6 +2,10 @@
 
 This repository holds RMI's organization-wide GitHub community health defaults. Files here apply to every repository in the org that doesn't provide it's own.
 
+## What Lives Here
+
+- `PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md`: a default PR template, aligned with the process guidance in [`practices/process/pull_request.md`](https://github.com/RMI/practices/blob/main/process/pull_request.md).
+
 ## How This Repo Relates to `practices`
 
 - `practices`[https://github.com/RMI/practices] is the source of truth for guidance: the "why" and "how" behind our engineering standards.