|
|
| .. _bug_triaging: |
|
|
| Bug triaging and issue curation |
| =============================== |
|
|
| The `issue tracker <https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/issues>`_ |
| is important to communication in the project because it serves as the |
| centralized location for making feature requests, reporting bugs, |
| identifying major projects to work on, and discussing priorities. For |
| this reason, it is important to curate the issue list, adding labels |
| to issues and closing issues that are resolved or unresolvable. |
|
|
| Triaging issues does not require any particular expertise in the |
| internals of Matplotlib, is extremely valuable to the project, and we |
| welcome anyone to participate in issue triage! However, people who |
| are not part of the Matplotlib organization do not have `permissions |
| to change milestones, add labels, or close issue |
| <https://docs.github.com/en/organizations/managing-access-to-your-organizations-repositories/repository-permission-levels-for-an-organization>`_. |
| If you do not have enough GitHub permissions do something (e.g. add a |
| label, close an issue), please leave a comment with your |
| recommendations! |
|
|
| Working on issues to improve them |
| --------------------------------- |
|
|
| Improving issues increases their chances of being successfully resolved. |
| Guidelines on submitting good issues can be found :ref:`here |
| <submitting-a-bug-report>`. |
| A third party can give useful feedback or even add |
| comments on the issue. |
| The following actions are typically useful: |
|
|
| - documenting issues that are missing elements to reproduce the problem |
| such as code samples |
|
|
| - suggesting better use of code formatting (e.g. triple back ticks in the |
| markdown). |
|
|
| - suggesting to reformulate the title and description to make them more |
| explicit about the problem to be solved |
|
|
| - linking to related issues or discussions while briefly describing |
| how they are related, for instance |
| attempt at this" or "See also #xyz where the same thing was |
| reported |
|
|
| - verifying that the issue is reproducible |
|
|
| - classify the issue as a feature request, a long standing bug or a |
| regression |
|
|
| .. topic:: Fruitful discussions |
|
|
| Online discussions may be harder than it seems at first glance, in |
| particular given that a person new to open-source may have a very |
| different understanding of the process than a seasoned maintainer. |
|
|
| Overall, it is useful to stay positive and assume good will. `The |
| following article |
| <http://gael-varoquaux.info/programming/technical-discussions-are-hard-a-few-tips.html>`_ |
| explores how to lead online discussions in the context of open source. |
|
|
|
|
| .. _triage_team: |
|
|
| Triage team |
| ----------- |
|
|
|
|
| If you would like to join the triage team: |
|
|
| 1. Correctly triage 2-3 issues. |
| 2. Ask someone on in the Matplotlib organization (publicly or privately) to |
| recommend you to the triage team (look for "Member" on the top-right of |
| comments on GitHub). If you worked with someone on the issues triaged, they |
| would be a good person to ask. |
| 3. Responsibly exercise your new power! |
|
|
| Anyone with commit or triage rights may nominate a user to be invited to join |
| the triage team by emailing matplotlib-steering-council@numfocus.org . |
|
|
|
|
| Triaging operations for members of the core and triage teams |
| ------------------------------------------------------------ |
|
|
| In addition to the above, members of the core team and the triage team |
| can do the following important tasks: |
|
|
| - Update labels for issues and PRs: see the list of `available GitHub |
| labels <https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/labels>`_. |
|
|
| - Triage issues: |
|
|
| - **reproduce the issue**, if the posted code is a bug label the issue |
| with "status: confirmed bug". |
|
|
| - **identify regressions**, determine if the reported bug used to |
| work as expected in a recent version of Matplotlib and if so |
| determine the last working version. Regressions should be |
| milestoned for the next bug-fix release and may be labeled as |
| "Release critical". |
|
|
| - **close usage questions** and politely point the reporter to use |
| `discourse <https://discourse.matplotlib.org>`_ or Stack Overflow |
| instead and label as "community support". |
|
|
| - **close duplicate issues**, after checking that they are |
| indeed duplicate. Ideally, the original submitter moves the |
| discussion to the older, duplicate issue |
|
|
| - **close issues that cannot be replicated**, after leaving time (at |
| least a week) to add extra information |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| .. topic:: Closing issues: a tough call |
|
|
| When uncertain on whether an issue should be closed or not, it is |
| best to strive for consensus with the original poster, and possibly |
| to seek relevant expertise. However, when the issue is a usage |
| question or has been considered as unclear for many years, then it |
| should be closed. |
|
|
|
|
| .. _triage_workflow: |
|
|
| A typical workflow for triaging issues |
| -------------------------------------- |
|
|
| The following workflow [1]_ is a good way to approach issue triaging: |
|
|
| #. Thank the reporter for opening an issue |
|
|
| The issue tracker is many people’s first interaction with the |
| Matplotlib project itself, beyond just using the library. As such, |
| we want it to be a welcoming, pleasant experience. |
|
|
| #. Is this a usage question? If so close it with a polite message. |
|
|
| #. Is the necessary information provided? |
|
|
| Check that the poster has filled in the issue template. If crucial |
| information (the version of Python, the version of Matplotlib used, |
| the OS, and the backend), is missing politely ask the original |
| poster to provide the information. |
|
|
| #. Is the issue minimal and reproducible? |
|
|
| For bug reports, we ask that the reporter provide a minimal |
| reproducible example. See `this useful post |
| <https://matthewrocklin.com/blog/work/2018/02/28/minimal-bug-reports>`_ |
| by Matthew Rocklin for a good explanation. If the example is not |
| reproducible, or if it's clearly not minimal, feel free to ask the reporter |
| if they can provide an example or simplify the provided one. |
| Do acknowledge that writing minimal reproducible examples is hard work. |
| If the reporter is struggling, you can try to write one yourself. |
| |
| If a reproducible example is provided, but you see a simplification, |
| add your simpler reproducible example. |
| |
| If you cannot reproduce the issue, please report that along with your |
| OS, Python, and Matplotlib versions. |
| |
| If we need more information from either this or the previous step |
| please label the issue with "status: needs clarification". |
| |
| #. Is this a regression? |
| |
| While we strive for a bug-free library, regressions are the highest |
| priority. If we have broken user-code that *used to* work, we should |
| fix that in the next patch release! |
| |
| Try to determine when the regression happened by running the |
| reproduction code against older versions of Matplotlib. This can |
| be done by released versions of Matplotlib (to get the version it |
| last worked in) or by using `git bisect |
| <https://git-scm.com/docs/git-bisect>`_ to find the first commit |
| where it was broken. |
| |
| |
| #. Is this a duplicate issue? |
| |
| We have many open issues. If a new issue seems to be a duplicate, |
| point to the original issue. If it is a clear duplicate, or consensus |
| is that it is redundant, close it. Make sure to still thank the |
| reporter, and encourage them to chime in on the original issue, and |
| perhaps try to fix it. |
| |
| If the new issue provides relevant information, such as a better or |
| slightly different example, add it to the original issue as a comment |
| or an edit to the original post. |
| |
| Label the closed issue with "status: duplicate" |
| |
| #. Make sure that the title accurately reflects the issue. If you have the |
| necessary permissions edit it yourself if it's not clear. |
|
|
| #. Add the relevant labels, such as "Documentation" when the issue is |
| about documentation, "Bug" if it is clearly a bug, "New feature" if it |
| is a new feature request, ... |
|
|
| If the issue is clearly defined and the fix seems relatively |
| straightforward, label the issue as “Good first issue” (and |
| possibly a description of the fix or a hint as to where in the |
| code base to look to get started). |
|
|
| An additional useful step can be to tag the corresponding module e.g. |
| the "GUI/Qt" label when relevant. |
|
|
|
|
| .. [1] Adapted from the pandas project `maintainers guide |
| <https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/development/maintaining.html>`_ and |
| `the scikit-learn project |
| <https://scikit-learn.org/dev/developers/bug_triaging.html>`_ . |
|
|
|
|
| Working on PRs to help review |
| ------------------------------ |
|
|
| Reviewing code is also encouraged. Contributors and users are welcome to |
| participate to the review process following our :ref:`review guidelines |
| <pr-guidelines>`. |
|
|
| Acknowledgments |
| --------------- |
|
|
| This page is lightly adapted from `the scikit-learn project |
| <https://scikit-learn.org/dev/developers/bug_triaging.html>`_ . |
|
|
