Bug Reporting Excellence
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When reporting bugs:
- TITLE:
[Component] fails [Condition] causing [Impact]
- DESCRIBE: Expected behavior → Actual behavior → Steps to reproduce
- INCLUDE: Environment, severity, screenshots/logs, business impact
- ISOLATE: Narrow down conditions (browser, user, amount thresholds)
- ONE BUG = ONE REPORT (don't combine issues)
Bug Report Formula:
## [Component] Issue Title
**Severity:** Critical/High/Medium/Low
**Environment:** Production/Staging/Dev
### Expected Behavior
What should happen
### Actual Behavior
What actually happens (with error messages)
### Steps to Reproduce
1. Step one
2. Step two
3. Observe issue
### Impact
How this affects users/business
Critical Success Factors:
- Reproducible steps (100%)
- Environment info (100%)
- Business impact stated (90%)
- Screenshots or logs (80%)
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Quick Reference Card
Severity Levels
| Level | Definition | Examples |
|---|
| Critical | System down, data loss, security | DB deleted, payments broken, credentials exposed |
| High | Major feature broken, many users | Can't checkout, search broken, dashboard fails |
| Medium | Partial break, workaround exists | Filter broken (refresh works), slow export |
| Low | Cosmetic, rare edge case | Button wraps on mobile, tooltip wrong color |
Title Formula
❌ Bad: "Checkout broken"
✅ Good: "Payment fails with Visa cards when order total > $1000"
Pattern: [Component] fails [Condition] causing [Impact]
Essential Information
Environment Details
Browser: Chrome 120.0.6099.109 (Windows)
OS: Windows 11 Pro
URL: https://example.com/checkout
Date/Time: 2025-10-17 14:23 UTC
User: test@example.com (ID: 12345)
Request ID: abc-123-def-456
Supporting Evidence
Error Messages:
{
"error": "Payment service unavailable",
"code": "GATEWAY_TIMEOUT",
"requestId": "abc-123-def-456"
}
Console Logs:
[ERROR] PaymentGateway: Connection timeout after 30000ms
at PaymentGateway.charge (gateway.js:145)
Example: Excellent Bug Report
## [Checkout] Payment processing times out for orders > $1000
**Severity:** High
**Environment:** Production
**Affected Users:** ~15% of premium purchases
### Expected Behavior
Payment completes within 5 seconds regardless of amount.
### Actual Behavior
For orders above $1000, payment gateway times out after 30 seconds.
User sees "Payment failed" error. Order not created.
### Steps to Reproduce
1. Add items totaling $1,050 to cart
2. Proceed to checkout
3. Enter payment: Visa 4532 1234 5678 9010
4. Click "Place Order"
5. Wait 30+ seconds
6. Observe timeout error
### Environment
- Browser: Chrome 120 (Windows 11)
- User: test@example.com
- Request ID: abc-123-def-456
### Evidence
Console error: `PaymentGateway timeout: 30000ms exceeded`
Network: /api/checkout: 30.14s (timeout)
### Impact
- Lost revenue: ~$15K/week from failed orders
- 23 support tickets this week
- Affects 15% of orders over $1000
### Additional Context
Started after Oct 15 deployment (v2.3.0)
Possibly related to PR #456 (fraud check)
Anti-Patterns
| ❌ Bad | Problem | ✅ Good |
|---|
| "Checkout is broken" | What doesn't work? | "Payment button doesn't respond when clicked" |
| "I saw an error" | No reproduction steps | Full steps with conditions |
| "Page loads slowly" | No specifics | "Dashboard takes 12s to load (should be <3s)" |
| Multiple bugs in one | Can't track separately | One report per bug |
Agent Integration
const triage = await Task("Triage Bug", {
title: 'Payment fails for orders > $1000',
description: bugDescription,
steps: reproductionSteps
}, "qe-quality-analyzer");
const dupeCheck = await Task("Check Duplicates", {
bugReport: newBug,
similarityThreshold: 0.85
}, "qe-quality-analyzer");
const enhanced = await Task("Enhance Report", {
originalReport: userSubmittedBug,
addMissingInfo: true,
identifyRootCause: true
}, "qe-production-intelligence");
Agent Coordination Hints
Memory Namespace
aqe/bug-reports/
├── triaged/* - Bug triage results
├── duplicates/* - Duplicate detection
├── patterns/* - Recurring bug patterns
└── root-cause/* - Root cause analyses
Fleet Coordination
const bugFleet = await FleetManager.coordinate({
strategy: 'bug-investigation',
agents: [
'qe-quality-analyzer',
'qe-flaky-test-hunter',
'qe-production-intelligence'
],
topology: 'parallel'
});
Related Skills
Remember
Your bug report is the starting point for someone else's work. Make it complete (all info needed), clear (anyone can follow), concise (no noise), and actionable (developer knows next step).
Good bug reports = Faster fixes = Better product = Happier users
Skill Composition
- After finding bug → Start with
/test-failure-investigator for root cause
- Prevent regression → Use
/regression-testing to add test preventing recurrence
- Track quality → Feed into
/test-metrics-dashboard for trend analysis
Gotchas
- Agent omits environment details (OS, browser version, node version) — these are critical for reproduction
- "Steps to reproduce" that start with "1. Open the app" are useless — specify exact URL, user role, and state
- Agent combines multiple bugs into one report — enforce ONE BUG = ONE REPORT strictly
- Screenshots without annotations don't help — always highlight the actual error area
- Severity assessment is often wrong — agent marks everything as "critical" or everything as "low"
