================
Triaging tickets
================

Django uses Trac_ for managing our progress, and Trac is a community-tended
garden of the bugs people have found and the features people would like to see
added. As in any garden, sometimes there are weeds to be pulled and sometimes
there are flowers and vegetables that need picking. We need your help to sort
out one from the other, and in the end we all benefit together.

Like all gardens, we can aspire to perfection but in reality there's no such
thing. Even in the most pristine garden there are still snails and insects.
In a community garden there are also helpful people who--with the best of
intentions--fertilize the weeds and poison the roses. It's the job of the
community as a whole to self-manage, keep the problems to a minimum, and
educate those coming into the community so that they can become valuable
contributing members.

Similarly, while we aim for Trac to be a perfect representation of the state
of Django's progress, we acknowledge that this simply will not happen. By
distributing the load of Trac maintenance to the community, we accept that
there will be mistakes. Trac is "mostly accurate", and we give allowances for
the fact that sometimes it will be wrong. That's okay. We're perfectionists
with deadlines.

We rely on the community to keep participating, keep tickets as accurate as
possible, and raise issues for discussion on our mailing lists when there is
confusion or disagreement.

Django is a community project, and every contribution helps. We can't do this
without YOU!

Triage workflow
---------------

Unfortunately, not all bug reports and feature requests in the ticket tracker
provide all the :doc:`required details<bugs-and-features>`. A number of
tickets have patches, but those patches don't meet all the requirements of a
:ref:`good patch<patch-style>`.

One way to help out is to *triage* tickets that have been created by other
users. The core team--as well as many community members--work on this
regularly, but more help is always appreciated.

Most of the workflow is based around the concept of a ticket's
:ref:`triage stages <triage-stages>`. Each stage describes where in its
lifetime a given ticket is at any time. Along with a handful of flags, this
attribute easily tells us what and who each ticket is waiting on.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, let's start there:

.. image:: /internals/_images/djangotickets.png
   :height: 451
   :width: 590
   :alt: Django's ticket triage workflow

We've got two roles in this diagram:

    * :doc:`Committers</internals/committers>` (also called core developers):
      people with commit access who are responsible for making the big
      decisions, writing large portions of the code and integrating the
      contributions of the community.

    * Ticket triagers: anyone in the Django community who chooses to
      become involved in Django's development process. Our Trac installation
      is intentionally left open to the public, and anyone can triage tickets.
      Django is a community project, and we encourage :ref:`triage by the
      community<how-can-i-help-with-triaging>`.

By way of example, here we see the lifecycle of an average ticket:

* Alice creates a ticket, and uploads an incomplete patch (no tests, incorrect
  implementation).

* Bob reviews the patch, marks it "Accepted", "needs tests", and "patch needs
  improvement", and leaves a comment telling Alice how the patch could be
  improved.

* Alice updates the patch, adding tests (but not changing the
  implementation). She removes the two flags.

* Charlie reviews the patch and resets the "patch needs improvement" flag with
  another comment about improving the implementation.

* Alice updates the patch, fixing the implementation. She removes the "patch
  needs improvement" flag.

* Daisy reviews the patch, and marks it RFC.

* Jacob, a core developer, reviews the RFC patch, applies it to his checkout,
  and commits it.

Some tickets require much less feedback than this, but then again some tickets
require much much more.

.. _triage-stages:

Triage stages
-------------

Below we describe in more detail the various stages that a ticket may flow
through during its lifetime.

Unreviewed
~~~~~~~~~~

The ticket has not been reviewed by anyone who felt qualified to make a
judgment about whether the ticket contained a valid issue, a viable feature,
or ought to be closed for any of the various reasons.

Accepted
~~~~~~~~

The big grey area! The absolute meaning of "accepted" is that the issue
described in the ticket is valid and is in some stage of being worked on.
Beyond that there are several considerations:

* **Accepted + No Flags**

  The ticket is valid, but no one has submitted a patch for it yet. Often this
  means you could safely start writing a patch for it.

* **Accepted + Has Patch**

  The ticket is waiting for people to review the supplied patch. This means
  downloading the patch and trying it out, verifying that it contains tests
  and docs, running the test suite with the included patch, and leaving
  feedback on the ticket.

* **Accepted + Has Patch + (any other flag)**

  This means the ticket has been reviewed, and has been found to need further
  work. "Needs tests" and "Needs documentation" are self-explanatory. "Patch
  needs improvement" will generally be accompanied by a comment on the ticket
  explaining what is needed to improve the code.

Design Decision Needed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This stage is for issues which may be contentious, may be backwards
incompatible, or otherwise involve high-level design decisions. These issues
should be discussed either in the ticket comments or on `django-developers`_.

If a ticket has been marked as "DDN", decisions are generally eventually
made by the core committers, however that is not a requirement. See the
:ref:`New contributors' FAQ<new-contributors-faq>` for "My ticket has been in
DDN forever! What should I do?"

This stage will generally only be used for feature
requests. It can also be used for issues that *might* be bugs, depending on
opinion or interpretation. Obvious bugs (such as crashes, incorrect query
results, or non-compliance with a standard) skip this stage and move straight
to "Accepted".

Ready For Checkin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The ticket was reviewed by any member of the community other than the person
who supplied the patch and found to meet all the requirements for a
commit-ready patch. A core committer now needs to give the patch a final
review prior to being committed. See the
:ref:`New contributors' FAQ<new-contributors-faq>` for "My ticket has been in
RFC forever! What should I do?"

Someday/Maybe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Generally only used for vague/high-level features or design ideas. These
tickets are uncommon and overall less useful since they don't describe
concrete actionable issues. They are enhancement requests that we might
consider adding someday to the framework if an excellent patch is submitted.
These tickets are not a high priority.

Fixed on a branch
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Used to indicate that a ticket is resolved as part of a major body of work
that will eventually be merged to trunk. Tickets in this stage generally
don't need further work. This may happen in the case of major
features/refactors in each release cycle, or as part of the annual Google
Summer of Code efforts.

Other triage attributes
-----------------------

A number of flags, appearing as checkboxes in Trac, can be set on a ticket:

  * Has patch
        This means the ticket has an associated
        :doc:`patch<writing-code/submitting-patches>`. These will be reviewed
        to see if the patch is "good".
  * Needs documentation:
        This flag is used for tickets with patches that need associated
        documentation. Complete documentation of features is a prerequisite
        before we can check them into the codebase.
  * Needs tests
        This flags the patch as needing associated unit tests. Again, this
        is a required part of a valid patch.
  * Patch needs improvement
        This flag means that although the ticket *has* a patch, it's not quite
        ready for checkin. This could mean the patch no longer applies
        cleanly, there is a flaw in the implementation, or that the code
        doesn't meet our standards."
  * Easy pickings
        Tickets that would require small, easy, patches.

Tickets should be categorized by *type* between:

  * New Feature
        For adding something new.

  * Bug
        For when an existing thing is broken or not behaving as expected.

  * Cleanup/optimization
        For when nothing is broken but something could be made cleaner,
        better, faster, stronger.

Tickets should also be classified into *components* indicating which area of
the Django codebase they belong to. This makes tickets better organized and
easier to find.

The *severity* attribute is used to identify blockers, that is, issues which
should get fixed before releasing the next version of Django. Typically those
issues are bugs causing regressions from earlier versions or potentially
causing severe data losses. This attribute is quite rarely used and the vast
majority of tickets have a severity of "Normal".

Finally, it is possible to use the *version* attribute to indicate in which
version the reported bug was identified.

.. _closing-tickets:

Closing Tickets
---------------

When a ticket has completed its useful lifecycle, it's time for it to be
closed. Closing a ticket is a big responsibility, though. You have to be sure
that the issue is really resolved, and you need to keep in mind that the
reporter of the ticket may not be happy to have their ticket closed (unless
it's fixed, of course). If you're not certain about closing a ticket, just
leave a comment with your thoughts instead.

If you do close a ticket, you should always make sure of the following:

  * Be certain that the issue is resolved.

  * Leave a comment explaining the decision to close the ticket.

  * If there is a way they can improve the ticket to reopen it, let them know.

  * If the ticket is a duplicate, reference the original ticket. Also
    cross-reference the closed ticket by living a comment in the original one
    -- this allows to access more related information about the reported bug
    or requested feature.

  * **Be polite.** No one likes having their ticket closed. It can be
    frustrating or even discouraging. The best way to avoid turning people
    off from contributing to Django is to be polite and friendly and to offer
    suggestions for how they could improve this ticket and other tickets in
    the future.

A ticket can be resolved in a number of ways:

  * fixed
        Used by the core developers once a patch has been rolled into
        Django and the issue is fixed.

  * invalid
        Used if the ticket is found to be incorrect. This means that the
        issue in the ticket is actually the result of a user error, or
        describes a problem with something other than Django, or isn't
        a bug report or feature request at all (for example, some new users
        submit support queries as tickets).

  * wontfix
        Used when a core developer decides that this request is not
        appropriate for consideration in Django. This is usually chosen after
        discussion in the `django-developers`_ mailing list. Feel free to
        start or join in discussions of "wontfix" tickets on the
        django-developers_ mailing list, but please do not reopen tickets
        closed as "wontfix" by core developers.

  * duplicate
        Used when another ticket covers the same issue. By closing duplicate
        tickets, we keep all the discussion in one place, which helps
        everyone.

  * worksforme
        Used when the ticket doesn't contain enough detail to replicate
        the original bug.

  * needsinfo
        Used when the ticket does not contain enough information to replicate
        the reported issue but is potentially still valid. The ticket
        should be reopened when more information is supplied.

If you believe that the ticket was closed in error -- because you're
still having the issue, or it's popped up somewhere else, or the triagers have
made a mistake -- please reopen the ticket and provide further information.
Again, please do not reopen tickets that have been marked as "wontfix" by core
developers and bring the issue to django-developers_ instead.

.. _how-can-i-help-with-triaging:

How can I help with triaging?
-----------------------------

Although the core developers make the big decisions in the ticket triage
process, there's a lot that general community members can do to help the
triage process. Really, **ANYONE** can help.

Start by `creating an account on Trac`_. If you have an account but have
forgotten your password, you can reset it using the `password reset page`_.

Then, you can help out by:

    * Closing "Unreviewed" tickets as "invalid", "worksforme" or "duplicate."

    * Promoting "Unreviewed" tickets to "Design decision needed" if a design
      decision needs to be made, or "Accepted" in case of obvious bugs or
      sensible, clearly defined, feature requests.

    * Correcting the "Needs tests", "Needs documentation", or "Has patch"
      flags for tickets where they are incorrectly set.

    * Setting the "`Easy pickings`_" flag for tickets that are small and
      relatively straightforward.

    * Checking that old tickets are still valid. If a ticket hasn't seen
      any activity in a long time, it's possible that the problem has been
      fixed but the ticket hasn't yet been closed.

    * Contacting the owners of tickets that have been claimed but have not
      seen any recent activity. If the owner doesn't respond after a week
      or so, remove the owner's claim on the ticket.

    * Identifying trends and themes in the tickets. If there a lot of bug
      reports about a particular part of Django, it may indicate we should
      consider refactoring that part of the code. If a trend is emerging,
      you should raise it for discussion (referencing the relevant tickets)
      on `django-developers`_.

    * Set the *type* of tickets that are still uncategorized.

    * Verify if patches submitted by other users are correct. If they do and
      also contain appropriate documentation and tests then move them to the
      "Ready for Checkin" stage. If they don't then leave a comment to explain
      why and set the corresponding flags ("Patch needs improvement",
      "Needs tests" etc.).

.. note::

    The `Reports page`_ contains links to many useful Trac queries, including
    several that are useful for triaging tickets and reviewing patches as
    suggested above.

    You can also find more :doc:`new-contributors`.

    .. _Reports page: http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/Reports

However, we do ask the following of all general community members working in
the ticket database:

    * Please **don't** close tickets as "wontfix." The core developers will
      make the final determination of the fate of a ticket, usually after
      consultation with the community.

    * Please **don't** promote your own tickets to "Ready for checkin". You
      may mark other people's tickets which you've reviewed as "Ready for
      checkin", but you should get at minimum one other community member to
      review a patch that you submit.

    * Please **don't** reverse a decision that has been made by a core
      developer. If you disagree with a decision that has been made,
      please post a message to `django-developers`_.

    * If you're unsure if you should be making a change, don't make the
      change but instead leave a comment with your concerns on the ticket,
      or post a message to `django-developers`_. It's okay to be unsure,
      but your input is still valuable.

.. _Trac: http://code.djangoproject.com/
.. _django-developers: http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers
.. _i18n branch: http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/branches/i18n
.. _`tags/releases`: http://code.djangoproject.com/browser/django/tags/releases
.. _`easy pickings`: http://code.djangoproject.com/query?status=!closed&easy=1
.. _`creating an account on Trac`: http://www.djangoproject.com/accounts/register/
.. _password reset page: http://www.djangoproject.com/accounts/password/reset/
