Managing Bugs

How to do bug triage on the BugTracker.

This page is intended for developers.

1. Definitions

1.1. Status levels:

• Unread - no one's ever responded to this bug (bad)

• Deferred - we've decided not to deal with this problem now

• Chatting - we're discussing a solution

• Need-eg - we need more information to progress

• In-progress - a partial fix exist or fix exists but isn't yet integrated

• Testing - a patch is merged, but poster has not confirmed it works, or it didn't reach the main repo yet

• Done-cbb - (could be better or couldn't be bothered) not perfect, but we've done as much as we're going to do

• Resolved - problem is fixed or was not a bug

1.2. Priorities

• critical - data loss or security issue

• urgent - bug that's blocking development or is a regression

• bug - bug that's not blocking development

• feature - it's not a bug, it's a feature

• wish - would be nice

2. How to do triage

2.1. Handling individual bugs

• Get diagnostics first, give suggestions later (see Advice)

• Respond to new bugs as quickly as possible, especially where more info would be useful
• Make sure its priority is set appropriately
• Make sure its title is useful (ie convert commands should mention the backend)
• Add appropriate developers to nosey
• Add appropriate topics
• If it is a common issue, mark it as a duplicate
• Bugs that have long been fixed in main should be marked resolved
• Bugs that have been marked 'testing' can be marked resolved after two weeks if the user doesn't confirm earlier
• Bugs that have recently accepted patches should be marked testing
• Bugs with active work, including patches that aren't in main should be marked in progress
• Bugs that require more info from the user should be marked need-eg
• Bugs that remain in the need-eg state for an extended period may be closed
• Features and wishes that have been decided against should move to done-cbb

There is a hook installed on an hourly mirror of main that causes HgBot to update the BugTracker according to changelog commit messages. Summaries containing '(issueNNNN)' will automatically move issues to the testing state. References to issueNNNN in the body of the message will create references in that issue to the changeset. You can also explicitly write closes issueNNN or fixes issueNNN to move the bug into testing, or see issueNNN or addressesNNN to create a reference in the issue.

2.2. Dealing with third-party issues

If the third-party project is large enough to have its own BTS:

• assign to project maintainer or add URL for proper BTS

• mark the issue done-cbb

For smaller projects, we'll allow using our BTS to track issues if the maintainer is a known BTS user:

• assign to project maintainer
• reduce priority to bug or lower
• mark done-cbb if bug remains inactive

For any other projects:

• link to project homepage or extension page on wiki
• mark the issue done-cbb

2.3. Dealing with patches on the BTS

We don't accept patches on the BTS:

• they are hard to view
• they are hard to comment on
• they are hard to apply
• only people who are nosy on an issue see them
• there is no easy way to search the BTS for unapplied patches so if a patch isn't immediately applied, it is forgotten

So when someone adds a patch to the BTS (which already contains a link to ContributingChanges next to the attach button!), do the following immediately so the patch doesn't sit in limbo for years:

• immediately assign the bug to them
• mark the issue in-progress

• add a comment that says "Read http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/ContributingChanges"

2.4. Marking Duplicates

• Choose whichever bug is resolved (or has a clear description) as the master
• Set superseder on the duplicate to point to the master, add a note, and set the bug as resolved
• If the master is not resolved, copy the nosy list from the duplicate and add a message pointing back to 'issueXXX'

2.5. Reducing Backlog

• Close out bugs that have been in testing and need-eg state too long
• Similarly, check if bugs marked in-progress are really in-progress

• Sort open issues by priority and activity - here is a triage and a unloved query

• Degrade long-standing bugs to features and features to wishes where appropriate

3. See also

• WritingTests

CategoryBugs CategoryDeveloper CategoryProcess