The moment you open the Pull Request, the coding time stops and Axify starts the timer for the Pickup phase. If you self-merge the Pull Request, or merge it right after you open it, the time will be consider in the Pickup phase, as long as you have no other interactions with the pull request (i.e. a comment or thumbs-up). The moment you interact with the pull request, Axify stops the timer for the Pickup phase and starts the timer for the Review phase.