Create Issue templates and Error Reporting flows

[flexseth]

Issue templates allow repository owners to provide guard rails when submitting a new issue to a repo.

Is the issue a feature request? Perceived bug? General question about architecture..?

Setting up templates for when a user clicks New Issue could be invaluable for saving time and offering troubleshooting steps up front. If the user is unable to find relevant information, issue templates can guide the user how to best submit a request.

When going through the issue template flow, labels can be automatically assigned to the issue to provide better filtering.

Sample issue templates

From the Documentation Issue Tracker

• Fix Docs (issue with current documentation)
• New docs

Resources

Configuring issue templates in GitHub repositories

Issue templates for Gutenberg

[flexseth]

Sample issue: WordPress user has installed a plugin and something weird is happening

Suggested workflow: Provide steps to troubleshoot origination of issue, offer help with searching this repo for relevant discussions. If troubleshooting doesn't work, and issue hasn't been discussed, open ticket

Issue sample

error may be because of a plugin

• Random user with name 1 is generated #1161

Troubleshooting steps

• Fresh installation of Playground
• Test steps along the way, tracking outputs
• Find step where bug occurs - is this due to Playground or a plugin?
• Provide more context to troubleshooting or getting support from plugins
• or link to issue report for Playground

etc. Direct the user on how to troubleshoot first, before opening up an Issue

[adamziel]

+1 to this ❤️

[flexseth]

@adamziel - I'll start working on "canned responses" to issues if you will, ie:

• questions that might help us troubleshoot and/or reproduce your issue:
• What OS are you using?
• What browser version?
• Do you see any relevant errors in the dev tools network tab?
• Are you running with the latest commits from this repo?

via #1180 (comment)

[flexseth]

User issue onboarding

What version of Playground are you running?

• Playground in the Browser - IE: https://playground.wordpress.net
• wp-now
• VS Code Extension

Issue triage

Route to various issue templates with known limitations, best practices for troubleshooting, etc

These templates can be created by looking at previously resolved issues and re-creating those journeys.
Testing and adjusting...

[adamziel]

• Let's explain which repo to go to, e.g. wp-now and VS Code extension is https://github.com/WordPress/playground-tools/
• It would be useful to discuss these in separate Pull Requests where they can also be easily merged

[ironnysh]

How about starting with a few common templates adapted from these team repos?

• Learn
• Gutenberg
• Performance
• Openverse

[flexseth]

How about starting with a few common templates adapted from these team repos?

• Learn
• Gutenberg
• Performance
• Openverse

Thank you for linking these issue templates @ironnysh! The Gutenberg repo has some of the best "issue onboarding" examples and the others probably have great context, too.

I will print all of these templates out and search for common ground with the Playground.

[flexseth]

re: including sha checksums and local file info in error reports, publicly on GitHub

• WP-NOW: Use SSH URL for release-wp-now.yml playground-tools#229

About errors on the filesystem I wouldnt recommend having users post that onto github since once its public, its public. What you could do is make a github action that follows up to all new tickets with a commend asking them to submit their ticket # + that info into like a google form or something along those lines

From WordPress security folks

[flexseth]

I will print all of these templates out and search for common ground with the Playground.

This totally didn't work BTW 😢 - I'm old school and like to print stuff to mark-up. :)

Marked as high priority, this totally needs to be done before the contributor day.

[flexseth]

PR to include an Issue template for online version of the playground

IE: playground.wordpress.net

• Issue templates/playground online #1263

PR for an issue template for Playground Tools

• Add Playground Tools issue templates playground-tools#236

[flexseth]

Both PRs have been updated- please review at your convenience, @adamziel