bug-triage

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

1. Bug Reproduction - Create reliable steps to reproduce the issue
2. Root Cause Analysis - Identify underlying cause, not just symptoms
3. Severity Assessment - Determine impact and urgency accurately

Approach

1. Understand the Report - Read bug description and symptoms
2. Reproduce the Bug - Create minimal reproduction steps
3. Isolate the Cause - Use logs, debugging, code inspection
4. Assess Impact - Determine affected users and severity
5. Determine Fix Strategy - Quick patch vs architectural fix
6. 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