Issue Labelling

Meaning of the Labels

Category

• feature - new end user functionality
• chore - Fixes / refinement / improvement of end user or developer functionality, or new developer functionality
• bug - broken end use or developer functionality; not working as the developers intended it
• techdebt - unpleasantness that does (or may in future) affect development

Component

• component/build - an issue concerning compilation, testing, packaging, distribution
• component/docs - a documentation issue
• component/ui - predominantly a front-end issue; most/all of the work can be completed by a f/e developer
• k8s - pertains to integration with Kubernetes
• ecs - pertains to integration with Amazon ECS

Other

• dogfood - important for the developer's own use of the project
• performance - excessive resource usage and latency; usually a bug or chore
• accuracy - incorrect information is being shown to the user; usually a bug
• help-wanted - small, well-defined and self-contained
• needs-design - UI representation/flow requires a fair amount of thought

NB: suggestions for refining the above explanations based on edge cases / examples from the current issue list are welcome.

Labelling Guidelines

There are a few guidelines to follow when labelling issues:

• every issue should be labelled with exactly one of 'feature', 'bug', 'techdebt', 'chore' (aka "category labels")
• apply other labels as appropriate, in particular component; avoid attaching a large number of labels - that typically indicates that the issue should be split up

Creating a new Label

• Only create labels that apply to a non-trivial number of open issues, and when you create the label, do actually apply it to these issues.
• Avoid sub-labels, i.e. labels that apply only to (some of the) issues that already have some specific other label.
• Choose pastel colours; the "bold" colours are reserved for the category labels.