Labels

To allow for asynchronous issue handling, we use milestones and labels. Leads and product managers handle most of the scheduling into milestones. Labeling is a task for everyone. (For some projects, labels can be set only by GitLab team members and not by community contributors).

Most issues will have labels for at least one of the following:

  • Type. For example: ~"type::feature", ~"type::bug", or ~"type::maintenance".
  • Stage. For example: ~"devops::plan" or ~"devops::create".
  • Group. For example: ~"group::source code", ~"group::knowledge", or ~"group::editor".
  • Category. For example: ~"Category:Code Analytics", ~"Category:DevOps Reports", or ~"Category:Templates".
  • Feature. For example: ~wiki, ~ldap, ~api, ~issues, or ~"merge requests".
  • Department: ~UX, ~Quality
  • Team: ~"Technical Writing", ~Delivery
  • Specialization: ~frontend, ~backend, ~documentation
  • Release Scoping: ~Deliverable, ~Stretch, ~"Next Patch Release"
  • Priority: ~"priority::1", ~"priority::2", ~"priority::3", ~"priority::4"
  • Severity: ~"severity::1", ~"severity::2", ~"severity::3", ~"severity::4"

Add ~"breaking change" label if the issue can be considered as a breaking change.

Add ~security label if the issue is related to application security.

All labels, their meaning and priority are defined on the labels page.

If you come across an issue that has none of these, and you’re allowed to set labels, you can always add the type, stage, group, and often the category/feature labels.

Type labels

Type labels are very important. They define what kind of issue this is. Every issue should have one and only one.

The SSOT for type and subtype labels is available in the handbook.

A number of type labels have a priority assigned to them, which automatically makes them float to the top, depending on their importance.

Type labels are always lowercase, and can have any color, besides blue (which is already reserved for category labels).

The descriptions on the labels page explain what falls under each type label.

The GitLab handbook documents when something is a bug and when it is a feature request.

Stage labels

Stage labels specify which stage the issue belongs to.

Naming and color convention

Stage labels respects the devops::<stage_key> naming convention. <stage_key> is the stage key as it is in the single source of truth for stages at https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/master/data/stages.yml with _ replaced with a space.

For instance, the “Manage” stage is represented by the ~"devops::manage" label in the gitlab-org group since its key under stages is manage.

The current stage labels can be found by searching the labels list for devops::.

These labels are scoped labels and thus are mutually exclusive.

The Stage labels are used to generate the direction pages automatically.

Group labels

Group labels specify which groups the issue belongs to.

It’s highly recommended to add a group label, as it’s used by our triage automation to infer the correct stage label.

Naming and color convention

Group labels respects the group::<group_key> naming convention and their color is #A8D695. <group_key> is the group key as it is in the single source of truth for groups at https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/master/data/stages.yml, with _ replaced with a space.

For instance, the “Pipeline Execution” group is represented by the ~"group::pipeline execution" label in the gitlab-org group since its key under stages.manage.groups is pipeline_execution.

The current group labels can be found by searching the labels list for group::.

These labels are scoped labels and thus are mutually exclusive.

You can find the groups listed in the Product Stages, Groups, and Categories page.

We use the term group to map down product requirements from our product stages. As a team needs some way to collect the work their members are planning to be assigned to, we use the ~group:: labels to do so.

Category labels

From the handbook’s Product stages, groups, and categories page:

Categories are high-level capabilities that may be a standalone product at another company, such as Portfolio Management, for example.

It’s highly recommended to add a category label, as it’s used by our triage automation to infer the correct group and stage labels.

If you are an expert in a particular area, it makes it easier to find issues to work on. You can also subscribe to those labels to receive an email each time an issue is labeled with a category label corresponding to your expertise.

Naming and color convention

Category labels respects the Category:<Category Name> naming convention and their color is #428BCA. <Category Name> is the category name as it is in the single source of truth for categories at https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/master/data/categories.yml.

For instance, the “DevOps Reports” category is represented by the ~"Category:DevOps Reports" label in the gitlab-org group since its devops_reports.name value is “DevOps Reports”.

If a category’s label doesn’t respect this naming convention, it should be specified with the label attribute in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/master/data/categories.yml.

Feature labels

From the handbook’s Product stages, groups, and categories page:

Features: Small, discrete functionalities, for example Issue weights. Some common features are listed within parentheses to facilitate finding responsible PMs by keyword.

It’s highly recommended to add a feature label if no category label applies, as it’s used by our triage automation to infer the correct group and stage labels.

If you are an expert in a particular area, it makes it easier to find issues to work on. You can also subscribe to those labels to receive an email each time an issue is labeled with a feature label corresponding to your expertise.

Examples of feature labels are ~wiki, ~ldap, ~api, ~issues, and ~"merge requests".

Naming and color convention

Feature labels are all-lowercase.

Workflow labels

Issues use the following workflow labels to specify the current issue status:

  • ~"workflow::awaiting security release"
  • ~"workflow::blocked"
  • ~"workflow::complete"
  • ~"workflow::design"
  • ~"workflow::feature-flagged"
  • ~"workflow::in dev"
  • ~"workflow::in review"
  • ~"workflow::planning breakdown"
  • ~"workflow::problem validation"
  • ~"workflow::production"
  • ~"workflow::ready for design"
  • ~"workflow::ready for development"
  • ~"workflow::refinement"
  • ~"workflow::scheduling"
  • ~"workflow::solution validation"
  • ~"workflow::start"
  • ~"workflow::validation backlog"
  • ~"workflow::verification"

Facet labels

To track additional information or context about created issues, developers may add facet labels. Facet labels are also sometimes used for issue prioritization or for measurements (such as time to close). An example of a facet label is the ~"customer" label, which indicates customer interest.

Department labels

The current department labels are:

  • ~"UX"
  • ~"Quality"
  • ~"infrastructure"
  • ~"security"

Team labels

Important: Most of the historical team labels (like Manage or Plan) are now deprecated in favor of Group labels and Stage labels.

Team labels specify what team is responsible for this issue. Assigning a team label makes sure issues get the attention of the appropriate people.

The current team labels are:

  • ~"Delivery"
  • ~"Technical Writing"
  • ~"Engineering Productivity"
  • ~"Contributor Success"

Naming and color convention

Team labels are always capitalized so that they show up as the first label for any issue.

Specialization labels

These labels narrow the specialization on a unit of work.

  • ~"frontend"
  • ~"backend"
  • ~"documentation"

Release scoping labels

Release Scoping labels help us clearly communicate expectations of the work for the release. There are three levels of Release Scoping labels:

  • ~"Deliverable": Issues that are expected to be delivered in the current milestone.
  • ~"Stretch": Issues that are a stretch goal for delivering in the current milestone. If these issues are not done in the current release, they will strongly be considered for the next release.
  • ~"Next Patch Release": Issues to put in the next patch release. Work on these first, and follow the patch release runbook to backport the bug fix to the current version.

Each issue scheduled for the current milestone should be labeled ~"Deliverable"~ or ~"Stretch". Any open issue for a previous milestone should be labeled ~"Next Patch Release", or otherwise rescheduled to a different milestone.

Priority labels

We have the following priority labels:

  • ~"priority::1"
  • ~"priority::2"
  • ~"priority::3"
  • ~"priority::4"

Refer to the issue triage priority label section in our handbook to see how it’s used.

Severity labels

We have the following severity labels:

  • ~"severity::1"
  • ~"severity::2"
  • ~"severity::3"
  • ~"severity::4"

Refer to the issue triage severity label section in our handbook to see how it’s used.

Label for community contributors

There are many issues that have a clear solution with uncontroversial benefit to GitLab users. However, GitLab might not have the capacity for all these proposals in the current roadmap. These issues are labeled ~"Seeking community contributions" because we welcome merge requests to resolve them.

Community contributors can submit merge requests for any issue they want, but the ~"Seeking community contributions" label has a special meaning. It points to changes that:

  1. We already agreed on,
  2. Are well-defined,
  3. Are likely to get accepted by a maintainer.

We want to avoid a situation when a contributor picks an ~"Seeking community contributions" issue and then their merge request gets closed, because we realize that it does not fit our vision, or we want to solve it in a different way.

We manually add the ~"Seeking community contributions" label to issues that fit the criteria described above. We do not automatically add this label, because it requires human evaluation.

We recommend people that have never contributed to any open source project to look for issues labeled ~"Seeking community contributions" with a weight of 1 or the ~"quick win" label attached to it. More experienced contributors are very welcome to tackle any of them.

For more complex features that have a weight of 2 or more and clear scope, we recommend looking at issues with the label ~"Community Challenge". If your MR for the ~"Community Challenge" issue gets merged, you will also have a chance to win a custom GitLab merchandise.

If you’ve decided that you would like to work on an issue, @-mention the appropriate product manager as soon as possible. The product manager will then pull in appropriate GitLab team members to further discuss scope, design, and technical considerations. This will ensure that your contribution is aligned with the GitLab product and minimize any rework and delay in getting it merged into main.

GitLab team members who apply the ~"Seeking community contributions" label to an issue should update the issue description with a responsible product manager, inviting any potential community contributor to @-mention per above.

Stewardship label

For issues related to the open source stewardship of GitLab, there is the ~"stewardship" label.

This label is to be used for issues in which the stewardship of GitLab is a topic of discussion. For instance if GitLab Inc. is planning to add features from GitLab EE to GitLab CE, related issues would be labeled with ~"stewardship".

A recent example of this was the issue for bringing the time tracking API to GitLab CE.

Technical debt and Deferred UX

In order to track things that can be improved in the GitLab codebase, we use the ~"technical debt" label in the GitLab issue tracker. We use the ~"Deferred UX" label when we choose to deviate from the MVC, in a way that harms the user experience.

These labels should be added to issues that describe things that can be improved, shortcuts that have been taken, features that need additional attention, and all other things that have been left behind due to high velocity of development. For example, code that needs refactoring should use the ~"technical debt" label, something that didn’t ship according to our Design System guidelines should use the ~"Deferred UX" label.

Everyone can create an issue, though you may need to ask for adding a specific label, if you do not have permissions to do it by yourself. Additional labels can be combined with these labels, to make it easier to schedule the improvements for a release.

Issues tagged with these labels have the same priority like issues that describe a new feature to be introduced in GitLab, and should be scheduled for a release by the appropriate person.

Make sure to mention the merge request that the ~"technical debt" issue or ~"Deferred UX" issue is associated with in the description of the issue.