Bugzilla Triage

Bugzilla Triage

Guidance for triaging bugs against the default Bugzilla 5.0+/Harmony data model: status workflow, resolutions, dependency trees, and duplicates. Every rule below is sourced from Bugzilla's public documentation or the public bugzilla/harmony source tree — see the reference/ files for full quotes and links. If a convention isn't cited to one of those sources, treat it as outside this skill's scope rather than assumed.

Status and resolution

Bugzilla's default install workflow only permits specific status transitions, enforced in code (Bugzilla::Bug::_check_bug_status throws illegal_bug_status_transition for anything not in the graph) and defined by Bugzilla::Install::STATUS_WORKFLOW:

(none) -> UNCONFIRMED | CONFIRMED | IN_PROGRESS
UNCONFIRMED -> CONFIRMED | IN_PROGRESS | RESOLVED
CONFIRMED   -> IN_PROGRESS | RESOLVED
IN_PROGRESS -> CONFIRMED | RESOLVED
RESOLVED    -> UNCONFIRMED | CONFIRMED | VERIFIED
VERIFIED    -> UNCONFIRMED | CONFIRMED

When triaging:

• Don't propose a transition outside this graph (e.g. IN_PROGRESS straight to VERIFIED) — it isn't legal in the default workflow.
• RESOLVED requires a resolution; moving off RESOLVED/VERIFIED back to an open status clears it (_check_bug_status in Bugzilla::Bug).
• A closed bug reopened to UNCONFIRMED also resets everconfirmed.
• IN_PROGRESS can require a target milestone if the installation has musthavemilestoneonaccept enabled — check before flagging a triage as incomplete over a missing milestone.

Resolutions shipped by default are FIXED, INVALID, WONTFIX, DUPLICATE, and WORKSFORME (plus the empty value an open bug carries) — the set Bugzilla::DB::ENUM_DEFAULTS seeds at install. MOVED is not a Harmony default, though older releases and many long-lived installations carry it. Resolutions are admin-configurable and the Bugzilla docs deliberately don't fix a canonical list, so confirm against the actual installation before asserting a resolution exists. See reference/status-and-resolution.md for the sourced list and caveats.

Dependency trees (Depends On / Blocks)

"Depends On" and "Blocks" are inverse views of the same relationship. The docs define both directions in one sentence: "If this bug cannot be fixed unless other bugs are fixed (depends on), or this bug stops other bugs being fixed (blocks), their numbers are recorded here." (2.3. Understanding a Bug). In code this is the dependencies entry of Bugzilla::Bug::BUG_RELATIONS (dependson / blocked fields); Harmony also tracks a separate regressions relation (regressed_by / regresses) — don't conflate the two when reading a bug's relationships.

Before adding a dependency edge, Bugzilla itself walks the existing tree recursively (_check_relationship_loop in Bugzilla::Bug) and refuses to create a cycle. When triaging a dependency tree by hand, apply the same check: a bug cannot depend on something that (transitively) already depends on it.

"Blocker" is not the same field as "Blocks". Severity blocker is a per-bug field value; the docs describe the scale as running "from blocker ("application unusable") to trivial ("minor cosmetic issue")" (2.3. Understanding a Bug), independent of whether the bug structurally blocks any other bug. A bug can be severity=blocker with an empty Blocks list, and a bug with a long Blocks list can be severity=normal. Judge "is this a blocker" on severity/impact; judge "what does this block" on the dependency tree — don't use one to infer the other.

Duplicate detection

Bugzilla surfaces likely duplicates at file time by searching existing summaries in the same product/component as the reporter types (enter_bug.cgi). When triaging a report that looks like a duplicate:

• Marking a bug DUPLICATE requires the target bug ID; Bugzilla::Bug::_check_dup_id resolves the ultimate duplicate target (so dup_id always points at a non-duplicate bug) and refuses to create a duplicate loop.
• set_dup_id forces the resolution to DUPLICATE if it isn't already, and adds a CMT_HAS_DUPE-typed comment to the target bug recording the link.
• Don't mark something a duplicate just because it's similar — confirm the underlying root cause matches, since the DUPLICATE resolution merges CC and vote weight onto the target bug.

See reference/dependencies-and-duplicates.md for source snippets.