Work the aged low-priority queue one ticket at a time
A real defect filed months ago, triaged as low, and never picked up. Reproduced, fixed, and covered by a test.
The ticket
Reproduce, fix, and cover one aged low-priority bug.
Acceptance criteria
- The bug is reproduced before anything is changed
- A test fails against the current code and passes with the fix
- The fix addresses the cause rather than the symptom described in the report
- If it cannot be reproduced, that is recorded on the ticket with what was tried
What lands as proof
A test that fails on the unfixed code, which proves the reproduction was real rather than assumed.
Why teams defer it
- Low priority is a decision made once and never revisited, so age accumulates without anybody choosing it.
- Half of them cannot be reproduced any more, and finding out costs the same as fixing one that can.
Questions
- What does the agent actually change?
- The ticket is scoped to one outcome: reproduce, fix, and cover one aged low-priority bug. Work that serves that outcome is in scope, and anything outside it is left for a separate ticket, so the pull request stays reviewable.
- How do I know the work is done?
- The pull request carries the evidence, not only the diff. Here that means a failing test that now passes, in the same pull request as the fix, so a reviewer can confirm the result without reproducing the work locally.
- How much oversight does this need?
- None is required before the run starts. Every claim this ticket makes can be checked by machine, so the agent works straight through and a person reviews the finished pull request like any other.