Issue Tracking

This page describes how we track issues in the vscode repository.

Inbox tracking and Issue triage

The Inbox

The inbox consists of issues which have 1) no assigned owner and 2) no assigned label. Assigning an owner or a label like feature-request, question, more info needed indicates that the issue has been triaged.

Query to find bugs in the inbox: inbox query

Labels

Issues are assigned a label that indicates the issue type:

• bug: incorrect behaviour of the code
• feature-request: a request for an enhancement
• question: a question from a user

Issues are assigned to a feature area/topic using a label. The feature area labels are 'greenish'.

Initial Triage

The person assigned to do the inbox tracking has the following duties.

• if the issue is a bug assign it to a person
• if the issue is a feature request add the label feature request an assignee is optional
• if the issue is a question assign the question label and assign a owner to answer the question
• assign the issue a feature/topic area label
• if it is remembered that the issue is a duplicate, mark it as a duplicate (see below)
• if the issue doesn't have enough information, comment on the issue with a link for how to file issues Issue Reporting Guidelines

The person assigned to do the inbox tracking doesn not have to (but is free to do more):

• try to reproduce the issue
• perform a duplicate search
• analyze the issue, this is the duty of the assignee
• engage into a discussion with the author of the issue

We rotate the initial inbox triage on a weekly basis.

2nd level Triage by the assignee

• review the feature-request vs. bug assignment, if it is a feature request remove the assignee
• assign the P1 label if needed
• assign a milestone
• follow-up with the author

Fix Planning

• Open Bugs assigned to an milestone will be reviewed weekly at the iteration planning meeting and the milestone will be adjusted if needed.

Bug Verification

Bugs need to be verified.

• Once a bug is fixed its state is changed to closed.
• If it needs verification it is assigned to another team member
• Once verified the issue is labeled with verified

Create a personal query: current milestone, assigned to me, closed, -label:"verified ✓"

Duplicates

Duplicate bugs are closed with a comment duplicates #issue

Moving issues to another repository

Use issue mover tool to move bugs to another repository.

Notice labels are copied to another repository, therefore when moving an issue to a repository owned by another team we should remove our custom labels.

Consistent labels across vscode repositories

VS Code consists of multiple repositories and we should use consistent work flows and labels across all our repositories.

To establish consistent labels across all our repositories use the Label Manager tool.

Consistent milestones across vscode repositories

To enable planning across repositories all the vscode repositories need to define the same milestones.

Iteration Planning

We use issues for iteration plans and test plans:

• Iteration Plans have a label iteration-plan with tasks [ ] for the different items. The individual items are tracked in existing issues (bugs, feature requests). If there is no existing issue then a new issue with the label plan-item is created. Here is an example.
• Test Plans have a label test-plan.