790eabcaf4
Documentation: Fix broken link of feature proposal template in issue_workflow.md See merge request gitlab-org/gitlab-ce!21894
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Markdown
333 lines
16 KiB
Markdown
# Workflow labels
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To allow for asynchronous issue handling, we use [milestones][milestones-page]
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and [labels][labels-page]. Leads and product managers handle most of the
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scheduling into milestones. Labelling is a task for everyone.
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Most issues will have labels for at least one of the following:
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- Type: ~"feature proposal", ~bug, ~customer, etc.
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- Subject: ~wiki, ~"container registry", ~ldap, ~api, ~frontend, etc.
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- Team: ~"CI/CD", ~Plan, ~Manage, ~Quality, etc.
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- Release Scoping: ~Deliverable, ~Stretch, ~"Next Patch Release"
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- Priority: ~P1, ~P2, ~P3, ~P4
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- Severity: ~S1, ~S2, ~S3, ~S4
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All labels, their meaning and priority are defined on the
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[labels page][labels-page].
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If you come across an issue that has none of these, and you're allowed to set
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labels, you can _always_ add the team and type, and often also the subject.
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[milestones-page]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/milestones
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[labels-page]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/labels
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## Type labels
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Type labels are very important. They define what kind of issue this is. Every
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issue should have one or more.
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Examples of type labels are ~"feature proposal", ~bug, ~customer, ~security,
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and ~"direction".
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A number of type labels have a priority assigned to them, which automatically
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makes them float to the top, depending on their importance.
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Type labels are always lowercase, and can have any color, besides blue (which is
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already reserved for subject labels).
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The descriptions on the [labels page][labels-page] explain what falls under each type label.
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## Subject labels
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Subject labels are labels that define what area or feature of GitLab this issue
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hits. They are not always necessary, but very convenient.
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Examples of subject labels are ~wiki, ~ldap, ~api,
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~issues, ~"merge requests", ~labels, and ~"container registry".
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If you are an expert in a particular area, it makes it easier to find issues to
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work on. You can also subscribe to those labels to receive an email each time an
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issue is labeled with a subject label corresponding to your expertise.
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Subject labels are always all-lowercase.
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## Team labels
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Team labels specify what team is responsible for this issue.
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Assigning a team label makes sure issues get the attention of the appropriate
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people.
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The current team labels are:
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- ~Configuration
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- ~"CI/CD"
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- ~Create
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- ~Distribution
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- ~Documentation
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- ~Geo
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- ~Gitaly
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- ~Manage
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- ~Monitoring
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- ~Plan
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- ~Quality
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- ~Release
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- ~Secure
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- ~UX
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The descriptions on the [labels page][labels-page] explain what falls under the
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responsibility of each team.
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Within those team labels, we also have the ~backend and ~frontend labels to
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indicate if an issue needs backend work, frontend work, or both.
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Team labels are always capitalized so that they show up as the first label for
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any issue.
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## Release Scoping labels
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Release Scoping labels help us clearly communicate expectations of the work for the
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release. There are three levels of Release Scoping labels:
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- ~Deliverable: Issues that are expected to be delivered in the current
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milestone.
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- ~Stretch: Issues that are a stretch goal for delivering in the current
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milestone. If these issues are not done in the current release, they will
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strongly be considered for the next release.
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- ~"Next Patch Release": Issues to put in the next patch release. Work on these
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first, and add the "Pick Into X" label to the merge request, along with the
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appropriate milestone.
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Each issue scheduled for the current milestone should be labeled ~Deliverable
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or ~"Stretch". Any open issue for a previous milestone should be labeled
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~"Next Patch Release", or otherwise rescheduled to a different milestone.
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### Priority labels
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Priority labels help us define the time a ~bug fix should be completed. Priority determines how quickly the defect turnaround time must be.
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If there are multiple defects, the priority decides which defect has to be fixed immediately versus later.
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This label documents the planned timeline & urgency which is used to measure against our actual SLA on delivering ~bug fixes.
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| Label | Meaning | Estimate time to fix |
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|-------|-----------------|------------------------------------------------------------------|
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| ~P1 | Urgent Priority | The current release + potentially immediate hotfix to GitLab.com |
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| ~P2 | High Priority | The next release |
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| ~P3 | Medium Priority | Within the next 3 releases (approx one quarter) |
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| ~P4 | Low Priority | Anything outside the next 3 releases (approx beyond one quarter) |
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## Severity labels
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Severity labels help us clearly communicate the impact of a ~bug on users.
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| Label | Meaning | Impact on Functionality | Example |
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|-------|-------------------|-------------------------------------------------------|---------|
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| ~S1 | Blocker | Outage, broken feature with no workaround | Unable to create an issue. Data corruption/loss. Security breach. |
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| ~S2 | Critical Severity | Broken Feature, workaround too complex & unacceptable | Can push commits, but only via the command line. |
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| ~S3 | Major Severity | Broken Feature, workaround acceptable | Can create merge requests only from the Merge Requests page, not through the Issue. |
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| ~S4 | Low Severity | Functionality inconvenience or cosmetic issue | Label colors are incorrect / not being displayed. |
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### Severity impact guidance
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Severity levels can be applied further depending on the facet of the impact; e.g. Affected customers, GitLab.com availability, performance and etc. The below is a guideline.
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| Severity | Affected Customers/Users | GitLab.com Availability | Performance Degradation |
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|----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------|------------------------------|
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| ~S1 | >50% users affected (possible company extinction level event) | Significant impact on all of GitLab.com | |
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| ~S2 | Many users or multiple paid customers affected (but not apocalyptic)| Significant impact on large portions of GitLab.com | Degradation is guaranteed to occur in the near future |
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| ~S3 | A few users or a single paid customer affected | Limited impact on important portions of GitLab.com | Degradation is likely to occur in the near future |
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| ~S4 | No paid users/customer affected, or expected to in the near future | Minor impact on on GitLab.com | Degradation _may_ occur but it's not likely |
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## Label for community contributors
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Issues that are beneficial to our users, 'nice to haves', that we currently do
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not have the capacity for or want to give the priority to, are labeled as
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~"Accepting Merge Requests", so the community can make a contribution.
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Community contributors can submit merge requests for any issue they want, but
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the ~"Accepting Merge Requests" label has a special meaning. It points to
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changes that:
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1. We already agreed on,
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1. Are well-defined,
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1. Are likely to get accepted by a maintainer.
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We want to avoid a situation when a contributor picks an
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~"Accepting Merge Requests" issue and then their merge request gets closed,
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because we realize that it does not fit our vision, or we want to solve it in a
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different way.
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We add the ~"Accepting Merge Requests" label to:
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- Low priority ~bug issues (i.e. we do not add it to the bugs that we want to
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solve in the ~"Next Patch Release")
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- Small ~"feature proposal"
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- Small ~"technical debt" issues
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After adding the ~"Accepting Merge Requests" label, we try to estimate the
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[weight](#issue-weight) of the issue. We use issue weight to let contributors
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know how difficult the issue is. Additionally:
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- We advertise ["Accepting Merge Requests" issues with weight < 5][up-for-grabs]
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as suitable for people that have never contributed to GitLab before on the
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[Up For Grabs campaign](http://up-for-grabs.net)
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- We encourage people that have never contributed to any open source project to
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look for ["Accepting Merge Requests" issues with a weight of 1][firt-timers]
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If you've decided that you would like to work on an issue, please @-mention
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the [appropriate product manager](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/#who-to-talk-to-for-what)
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as soon as possible. The product manager will then pull in appropriate GitLab team
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members to further discuss scope, design, and technical considerations. This will
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ensure that your contribution is aligned with the GitLab product and minimize
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any rework and delay in getting it merged into master.
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GitLab team members who apply the ~"Accepting Merge Requests" label to an issue
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should update the issue description with a responsible product manager, inviting
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any potential community contributor to @-mention per above.
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[up-for-grabs]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues?label_name=Accepting+Merge+Requests&scope=all&sort=weight_asc&state=opened
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[firt-timers]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues?label_name%5B%5D=Accepting+Merge+Requests&scope=all&sort=upvotes_desc&state=opened&weight=1
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## Issue triaging
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Our issue triage policies are [described in our handbook]. You are very welcome
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to help the GitLab team triage issues. We also organize [issue bash events] once
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every quarter.
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The most important thing is making sure valid issues receive feedback from the
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development team. Therefore the priority is mentioning developers that can help
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on those issues. Please select someone with relevant experience from the
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[GitLab team][team]. If there is nobody mentioned with that expertise look in
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the commit history for the affected files to find someone.
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We also use [GitLab Triage] to automate some triaging policies. This is
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currently set up as a [scheduled pipeline] running on [quality/triage-ops]
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project.
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[described in our handbook]: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/issue-triage/
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[issue bash events]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/17815
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[GitLab Triage]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-triage
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[scheduled pipeline]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/quality/triage-ops/pipeline_schedules/10512/edit
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[quality/triage-ops]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/quality/triage-ops
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## Feature proposals
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To create a feature proposal for CE, open an issue on the
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[issue tracker of CE][ce-tracker].
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For feature proposals for EE, open an issue on the
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[issue tracker of EE][ee-tracker].
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In order to help track the feature proposals, we have created a
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[`feature proposal`][fpl] label. For the time being, users that are not members
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of the project cannot add labels. You can instead ask one of the [core team]
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members to add the label ~"feature proposal" to the issue or add the following
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code snippet right after your description in a new line: `~"feature proposal"`.
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Please keep feature proposals as small and simple as possible, complex ones
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might be edited to make them small and simple.
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Please submit Feature Proposals using the ['Feature Proposal' issue template](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/.gitlab/issue_templates/Feature%20proposal.md) provided on the issue tracker.
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For changes in the interface, it is helpful to include a mockup. Issues that add to, or change, the interface should
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be given the ~"UX" label. This will allow the UX team to provide input and guidance. You may
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need to ask one of the [core team] members to add the label, if you do not have permissions to do it by yourself.
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If you want to create something yourself, consider opening an issue first to
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discuss whether it is interesting to include this in GitLab.
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## Issue tracker guidelines
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**[Search the issue tracker][ce-tracker]** for similar entries before
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submitting your own, there's a good chance somebody else had the same issue or
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feature proposal. Show your support with an award emoji and/or join the
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discussion.
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Please submit bugs using the ['Bug' issue template](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/.gitlab/issue_templates/Bug.md) provided on the issue tracker.
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The text in the parenthesis is there to help you with what to include. Omit it
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when submitting the actual issue. You can copy-paste it and then edit as you
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see fit.
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## Issue weight
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Issue weight allows us to get an idea of the amount of work required to solve
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one or multiple issues. This makes it possible to schedule work more accurately.
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You are encouraged to set the weight of any issue. Following the guidelines
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below will make it easy to manage this, without unnecessary overhead.
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1. Set weight for any issue at the earliest possible convenience
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1. If you don't agree with a set weight, discuss with other developers until
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consensus is reached about the weight
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1. Issue weights are an abstract measurement of complexity of the issue. Do not
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relate issue weight directly to time. This is called [anchoring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring)
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and something you want to avoid.
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1. Something that has a weight of 1 (or no weight) is really small and simple.
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Something that is 9 is rewriting a large fundamental part of GitLab,
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which might lead to many hard problems to solve. Changing some text in GitLab
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is probably 1, adding a new Git Hook maybe 4 or 5, big features 7-9.
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1. If something is very large, it should probably be split up in multiple
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issues or chunks. You can simply not set the weight of a parent issue and set
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weights to children issues.
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## Regression issues
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Every monthly release has a corresponding issue on the CE issue tracker to keep
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track of functionality broken by that release and any fixes that need to be
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included in a patch release (see [8.3 Regressions] as an example).
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As outlined in the issue description, the intended workflow is to post one note
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with a reference to an issue describing the regression, and then to update that
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note with a reference to the merge request that fixes it as it becomes available.
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If you're a contributor who doesn't have the required permissions to update
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other users' notes, please post a new note with a reference to both the issue
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and the merge request.
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The release manager will [update the notes] in the regression issue as fixes are
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addressed.
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[8.3 Regressions]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/4127
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[update the notes]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/release-tools/blob/master/doc/pro-tips.md#update-the-regression-issue
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## Technical and UX debt
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In order to track things that can be improved in GitLab's codebase,
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we use the ~"technical debt" label in [GitLab's issue tracker][ce-tracker].
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For user experience improvements, we use the ~"UX debt" label.
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These labels should be added to issues that describe things that can be improved,
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shortcuts that have been taken, features that need additional attention, and all
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other things that have been left behind due to high velocity of development.
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For example, code that needs refactoring should use the ~"technical debt" label,
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user experience refinements should use the ~"UX debt" label.
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Everyone can create an issue, though you may need to ask for adding a specific
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label, if you do not have permissions to do it by yourself. Additional labels
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can be combined with these labels, to make it easier to schedule
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the improvements for a release.
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Issues tagged with these labels have the same priority like issues
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that describe a new feature to be introduced in GitLab, and should be scheduled
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for a release by the appropriate person.
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Make sure to mention the merge request that the ~"technical debt" issue or
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~"UX debt" issue is associated with in the description of the issue.
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## Stewardship
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For issues related to the open source stewardship of GitLab,
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there is the ~"stewardship" label.
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This label is to be used for issues in which the stewardship of GitLab
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is a topic of discussion. For instance if GitLab Inc. is planning to add
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features from GitLab EE to GitLab CE, related issues would be labelled with
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~"stewardship".
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A recent example of this was the issue for
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[bringing the time tracking API to GitLab CE][time-tracking-issue].
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[time-tracking-issue]: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/25517#note_20019084
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---
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[Return to Contributing documentation](index.md)
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