| name | Bug Triage |
| description | Systematically reproduce, diagnose, and analyze bugs to determine root cause, assess severity, and plan fix strategy |
| category | analysis |
| required_tools | ["Read","Write","Grep","Glob","Bash"] |
Bug Triage
Purpose
Systematically analyze bug reports to reproduce issues, identify root causes, assess severity and impact, and determine the appropriate fix strategy and priority.
When to Use
- Analyzing incoming bug reports
- Investigating production issues
- Diagnosing test failures
- Planning bug fix work
- Prioritizing bug backlog
Key Capabilities
- Bug Reproduction - Create reliable steps to reproduce the issue
- Root Cause Analysis - Identify underlying cause, not just symptoms
- Severity Assessment - Determine impact and urgency accurately
Approach
- Understand the Report - Read bug description and symptoms
- Reproduce the Bug - Create minimal reproduction steps
- Isolate the Cause - Use logs, debugging, code inspection
- Assess Impact - Determine affected users and severity
- Determine Fix Strategy - Quick patch vs architectural fix
- Document Findings - Clear report for implementation team
Example
Context: Bug report "Users can't log in"
## Bug Analysis
**Symptoms**:
- Users see "Invalid credentials" error
- Occurs only for accounts created after Oct 15
- Works fine for older accounts
**Reproduction Steps**:
1. Create new user account
2. Log out
3. Attempt to log in with correct credentials
4. Observe error message
**Root Cause**:
- Code inspection of auth system
- Found: Password hashing algorithm changed Oct 15
- Old accounts use bcrypt, new accounts use argon2
- Login validation only checks bcrypt
**Location**: `src/auth/validator.py:45-67`
**Impact**:
- Severity: Critical (blocks all new users)
- Affected: ~500 accounts created in last week
- Workaround: None available
**Fix Strategy**:
- Update validator to check both hash types
- Add migration for existing argon2 hashes
- Estimated effort: 2 hours (small fix)
- Testing required: Auth system regression tests
**Priority**: Critical - Fix immediately
**Recommended Agent**: implementer (straightforward code fix)
Best Practices
- ✅ Always try to reproduce before diagnosing
- ✅ Check logs and error messages first
- ✅ Use Grep/Glob to find related code quickly
- ✅ Document exact reproduction steps
- ✅ Consider data issues, not just code bugs
- ✅ Assess severity objectively (not all bugs are critical)
- ❌ Avoid: Assuming the cause without investigation
- ❌ Avoid: Treating all bugs as equally urgent
