bug-report-triage

name	Bug report triage
description	Turn a report into something reproducible, or say precisely what is missing.
category	qa

Triaging a bug report

An unreproducible bug is not fixed, it is closed. The job is reproducibility.

Establish

Exact steps in order · what happened · what was expected · environment, version and browser · frequency — always, sometimes, once · when it started and what changed then · does it happen for other users or other tenants.

Classify honestly

Bug — it does not do what it says. Regression — it used to work; find the version. Missing feature — it never worked; say so plainly rather than accepting it as a bug. Works as designed — and the design surprised somebody, which is worth its own ticket.

Severity from impact and frequency

Not from how annoyed the reporter is. Say the reasoning so it can be argued with.

Always end with

Either a numbered reproduction, or a specific list of what is still needed. "Can you provide more information" produces nothing.

Never

Close for inactivity without saying what was missing, or merge two reports because the symptoms look alike.