Bug triage workflow
Classify, prioritize, and assign incoming bug reports systematically.
Every team gets bug reports, but not every team has a systematic way to handle them. This template maps the entire flow: from the moment a report lands, through reproducibility checks and severity assessment, to assignment and handoff to an engineer. The key insight is that not all bugs are equal — a P0 gets immediate attention while a P3 waits in the backlog. Without this diagram, triage becomes ad hoc, duplicates pile up, and critical bugs slip through.
When to use this template
- Process documentation — show new team members how to report, classify, and handle bugs without putting the burden on one person's head.
- Scaling handoff — as your team grows, triage becomes harder to coordinate; this diagram codifies the decision rules so anyone can triage consistently.
- Retrospectives — when you realize critical bugs were missed or the backlog is out of control, use this to identify which step in the process broke down.
How to adapt it
Start with your severity categories and SLA for each:
- Replace P0/P1/P2/P3 with your labels (S1-S4, Critical/High/Medium/Low, etc.).
- Add specific routing rules: P0 goes to the on-call engineer, P1 to the sprint lead, P2 to the tech lead for prioritization.
- Insert automatic checks before human review: link your bug form to a script that scans for duplicates and detects environment/version mismatches automatically.
Visual edits flow through the diagram cleanly, so you can update the process as your team learns what works.
Mermaid code
Copy it anywhere Mermaid is supported — GitHub, Notion, or your docs.
flowchart TD
A[Bug report received] --> B[Assess reproducibility]
B -->|Cannot reproduce| C[Mark as needs info]
C --> D[Request more details]
D --> B
B -->|Confirmed| E{Severity?}
E -->|Critical| F[P0 - Assign immediately]
E -->|High| G[P1 - Assign this sprint]
E -->|Medium| H[P2 - Backlog]
E -->|Low| I[P3 - Consider later]
F --> J[Add to current sprint]
G --> J
H --> K[Add to backlog]
I --> K
J --> L{Engineer available?}
K --> M[Wait for sprint planning]
L -->|Yes| N[Assign to engineer]
L -->|No| M
N --> O[Engineer starts investigation]
M --> O
Frequently asked questions
- What is bug triage?
- Bug triage is the systematic process of classifying, prioritizing, and routing incoming bug reports so your team tackles the most critical issues first. It answers three questions: Is this really a bug? How bad is it? Who should fix it? Most teams discover they waste 40% of bug-fixing time on issues they never should have opened.
- When should I use this template?
- Use this diagram when you're setting up a bug-handling process, training new team members on how bugs flow from reports to engineers, or analyzing why your bug backlog keeps growing. It makes the decision points explicit — reproducibility, severity, capacity — so nothing falls through the cracks.
- How do I adapt this template?
- Rename the severity levels to match your system (S1/S2/S3, or critical/high/low). Add your tools in parentheses: 'Assign to engineer (Jira)', 'Request more details (GitHub issue comment)'. Visual edits regenerate clean Mermaid code, so you can drop this straight into your onboarding docs or wiki.
- Should triage happen before or after developers start working?
- Always before. Triage is a gate that prevents engineers from spinning up on bugs that can't be reproduced, aren't real, or are duplicates of work already in flight. A 30-minute triage meeting each morning saves 10x the time in wasted investigation later.