Issue Tracking

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

Inbox tracking and Issue triage

The Inbox Triage

New issues or pull requests submitted by the community are triaged by a team member. The team rotates the inbox tracker on a weekly basis.

Inbox Query

Initial Triage done by the Inbox Tracker

• If the issue or pull request is valid, it is assigned to the Backlog milestone.
• If an issue is a question, then the author is redirected to stack overflow. Add the following comment and close the issue.
  • Please ask your question on stack overflow Stack Overflow using the tag vscode. The code community is happy to answer your question there.
• If an issue needs more info the needs more info label is assigned and the author is asked for more information in a comment. The issue is not assigned to the Backlog. If there is no additional information provided after 3 days the issue is closed with a comment to reopen it with more information.
• if the issue is a bug, add the bug label and assign it to a person
• if the issue is a feature request, add the label feature request and @mention if someone from the team should be aware of the issue
• if needed edit the title to improve it
• assign the issue with a feature/topic area label
• assign a P1 label if the issue is critical/blocking and mention @microsoft/vscode to make the team aware of the issue

The person assigned to do the inbox tracking does not have to (unless they want to):

• perform a duplicate search
• analyze the issue, this is the duty of the assignee
• engage into a discussion with the author of the issue and ask for more information

2nd level Triage done by the assignee

• review the feature-request vs. bug assignment, if it is a feature request remove the assignee, add the correct label
• assign the P1 label if needed
• if the issue is critical assign it to the current milestone
• follow-up with the author as needed

Bug Management

At the beginning of the debt week we review the issues and pull requests assigned to the backlog milestone and assign them to the current milestone.

At the beginning of the endgame we review the open issues and adjust the milestone if needed, move it to the next milestone or back to the backlog.

Bug Verification

Bugs need to be verified.

• Once a bug is fixed its state is changed to closed
• If it needs verification, assign it to another team member
• Once verified, label the issue with verified

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

Duplicates

Duplicate bugs are closed with a comment duplicates #issue. Please try to reference an earlier issue unless a later issue is more appropriate (has more context, better scenarios, repro steps, etc.).

Moving issues to another repository

Use the issue mover tool to move bugs to another repository.

Consistent labels across vscode repositories

Visual Studio 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 Visual Studio Code related 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, here is an example.