My takeaway from this thread is that priorities should have a shared community intuition and/or policy around how they are treated, which could eventually be formalized into SLOs.
At a practical level, I do think that build breaks are higher priority than release blockers. If you are on this thread but not looking at the PR, here is the verbiage I added about urgency: P0/Blocker: "A P0 issue is more urgent than simply blocking the next release" P1/Critical: "Most critical bugs should block release" P2/Major: "No special urgency is associated" ... Kenn On Fri, Oct 25, 2019 at 11:46 AM Robert Bradshaw <rober...@google.com> wrote: > We cut a release every 6 weeks, according to schedule, making it easy > to plan for, and the release manager typically sends out a warning > email to remind everyone. I don't think it makes sense to do that for > every ticket. Blockers should be reserved for things we really > shouldn't release without. > > On Fri, Oct 25, 2019 at 11:33 AM Pablo Estrada <pabl...@google.com> wrote: > > > > I mentioned on the PR that I had been using the 'blocker' priority along > with the 'fix version' field to mark issues that I want to get in the > release. > > Of course, this little practice of mine only matters much around release > branch cutting time - and has been useful for me to track which things I > want to ensure getting into the release / bump to the next /etc. > > I've also found it to be useful as a way to communicate with the release > manager without having to sync directly. > > > > What would be a reasonable way to tell the release manager "I'd like to > get this feature in. please talk to me if you're about to cut the branch" - > that also uses the priorities appropriately? - and that allows the release > manager to know when a fix version is "more optional" / "less optional"? > > > > On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 12:20 PM Kenneth Knowles <k...@apache.org> > wrote: > >> > >> I finally got around to writing some of this up. It is minimal. > Feedback is welcome, especially if what I have written does not accurately > represent the community's approach. > >> > >> https://github.com/apache/beam/pull/9862 > >> > >> Kenn > >> > >> On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 3:21 PM Daniel Oliveira <danolive...@google.com> > wrote: > >>> > >>> Ah, sorry, I missed that Alex was just quoting from our Jira > installation (didn't read his email closely enough). Also I wasn't aware > about those pages on our website. > >>> > >>> Seeing as we do have definitions for our priorities, I guess my main > request would be that they be made more discoverable somehow. I don't think > the tooltips are reliable, and the pages on the website are informative, > but hard to find. Since it feels a bit lazy to say "this isn't discoverable > enough" without suggesting any improvements, I'd like to propose these two > changes: > >>> > >>> 1. We should write a Beam Jira Guide with basic information about our > Jira. I think the bug priorities should go in here, but also anything else > we would want someone to know before filing any Jira issues, like how our > components are organized or what the different issue types mean. This guide > could either be written in the website or the wiki, but I think it should > definitely be linked in https://beam.apache.org/contribute/ so that > newcomers read it before getting their Jira account approved. The goal here > being to have a reference for the basics of our Jira since at the moment it > doesn't seem like we have anything for this. > >>> > >>> 2. The existing info on Post-commit and pre-commit policies doesn't > seem very discoverable to someone monitoring the Pre/Post-commits. I've > reported a handful of test-failures already and haven't seen this link > mentioned much. We should try to find a way to funnel people towards this > link when there's an issue, the same way we try to funnel people towards > the contribution guide when they write a PR. As a note, while writing this > email I remembered this link that someone gave me before ( > https://s.apache.org/beam-test-failure). That mentions the Post-commit > policies page, so maybe it's just a matter of pasting that all over our > Jenkins builds whenever we have a failing test? > >>> > >>> PS: I'm also definitely for SLOs, but I figure it's probably better > discussed in a separate thread so I'm trying to stick to the subject of > priority definitions. > >>> > >>> On Mon, Feb 11, 2019 at 9:17 AM Scott Wegner <sc...@apache.org> wrote: > >>>> > >>>> Thanks for driving this discussion. I also was not aware of these > existing definitions. Once we agree on the terms, let's add them to our > Contributor Guide and start using them. > >>>> > >>>> +1 in general; I like both Alex and Kenn's definitions; Additional > wordsmithing could be moved to a Pull Request. Can we make the definitions > useful for both the person filing a bug, and the assignee, i.e. > >>>> > >>>> <Priority Level>: <Criteria for what types of issues should be > assigned>. <Expectations for responding to a Priority Level issue> > >>>> > >>>> On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 7:49 PM Kenneth Knowles <k...@google.com> > wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>> The content that Alex posted* is the definition from our Jira > installation anyhow. > >>>>> > >>>>> I just searched around, and there's > https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/According-to-Jira-What-is-Blocker-Critical-Major-Minor-and/qaq-p/668774 > which makes clear that this is really user-defined, since Jira has many > deployments with their own configs. > >>>>> > >>>>> I guess what I want to know about this thread is what action is > being proposed? > >>>>> > >>>>> Previously, there was a thread that resulted in > https://beam.apache.org/contribute/precommit-policies/ and > https://beam.apache.org/contribute/postcommits-policies/. These have test > failures and flakes as Critical. I agree with Alex that these should be > Blocker. They disrupt the work of the entire community, so we need to drop > everything and get green again. > >>>>> > >>>>> Other than that, I think what you - Daniel - are suggesting is that > the definition might be best expressed as SLOs. I asked on > u...@infra.apache.org about how we could have those and the answer is the > homebrew > https://svn.apache.org/repos/infra/infrastructure/trunk/projects/status/sla/jira/. > If anyone has time to dig into that and see if it can work for us, that > would be cool. > >>>>> > >>>>> Kenn > >>>>> > >>>>> *Blocker: Blocks development and/or testing work, production could > not run > >>>>> Critical: Crashes, loss of data, severe memory leak. > >>>>> Major (Default): Major loss of function. > >>>>> Minor: Minor loss of function, or other problem where easy > workaround is present. > >>>>> Trivial: Trivial Cosmetic problem like misspelt words or misaligned > text. > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> On Sun, Feb 10, 2019 at 7:20 PM Daniel Oliveira < > danolive...@google.com> wrote: > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Are there existing meanings for the priorities in Jira already? I > wasn't able to find any info on either the Beam website or wiki about it, > so I've just been prioritizing issues based on gut feeling. If not, I think > having some well-defined priorities would be nice, at least for our > test-failures, and especially if we wanna have some SLOs like I've seen > being thrown about. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 3:06 PM Kenneth Knowles <k...@apache.org> > wrote: > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> I've been thinking about this since working on the release. If I > ignore the names I think: > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> P0: get paged, stop whatever you planned on doing, work late to fix > >>>>>>> P1: continually update everyone on status and shouldn't sit around > unassigned > >>>>>>> P2: most things here; they can be planned or picked up by whomever > >>>>>>> P3: nice-to-have things, maybe starter tasks or lesser cleanup, > but no driving need > >>>>>>> Sometimes there's P4 but I don't value it. Often P3 is a > deprioritized thing from P2, so more involved and complex, while P4 is > something easy and not important filed just as a reminder. Either way, they > are both not on the main path of work. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> I looked into it and the Jira priority scheme determines the set > of priorities as well as the default. Ours is shared by 635 projects. > Probably worth keeping. The default priority is Major which would > correspond with P2. We can expect the default to be where most issues end > up. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> P0 == Blocker: get paged, stop whatever you planned on doing, work > late to fix > >>>>>>> P1 == Critical: continually update everyone on status and > shouldn't sit around unassigned > >>>>>>> P0 == Major (default): most things here; they can be planned or > picked up by whomever > >>>>>>> P3 == Minor: nice-to-have things, maybe starter tasks or lesser > cleanup, but no driving need > >>>>>>> Trivial: Maybe this is attractive to newcomers as it makes it > sound easy. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Kenn > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 4:08 PM Alex Amato <ajam...@google.com> > wrote: > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Hello Beam community, I was thinking about this and found some > information to share/discuss. Would it be possible to confirm my thinking > on this: > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> There are 5 priorities in the JIRA system today (tooltip link): > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Blocker Blocks development and/or testing work, production could > not run > >>>>>>>> Critical Crashes, loss of data, severe memory leak. > >>>>>>>> Major Major loss of function. > >>>>>>>> Minor Minor loss of function, or other problem where easy > workaround is present. > >>>>>>>> Trivial Cosmetic problem like misspelt words or misaligned text. > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> How should JIRA issues be prioritized for pre/post commit test > failures? > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> I think Blocker > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> What about the flakey failures? > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Blocker as well? > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> How should non test issues be prioritized? (E.g. feature to > implement or bugs not regularly breaking tests). > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> I suggest Minor, but its not clear how to distinguish between > these. > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Below is my thinking: But I wanted to know what the Apache/Beam > community generally thinks about these priorities. > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Blocker: Expect to be paged. Production systems are down. > >>>>>>>> Critical: Expect to be contacted by email or a bot to fix this. > >>>>>>>> Major: Some loss of function in the repository, can issues that > need to be addressed soon are here. > >>>>>>>> Minor: Most issues will be here, important issues within this > will get picked up and completed. FRs, bugs. > >>>>>>>> Trivial: Unlikely to be implemented, far too many issues in this > category. FRs, bugs. > >>>>>>>> > >>>>>>>> Thanks for helping to clear this up > >>>>>>>> Alex > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> -- > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> Got feedback? tinyurl.com/swegner-feedback >
