Issues

Issues in GitHub are a way to track what changes should be made within a repository. Though the word has a negative connotation, an issue doesn’t only arise in the case when something is wrong. Yes, issues can be used to address bugfixes, but they can only be used as a way to request new features be added.

Issues can be assigned to individuals or teams in GitHub as a way to have people working on the code who may be best-suited to handle it. In general, it is best to tag teams rather than individuals, unless an individual developer has a very specific expertise others on the team may not have.

For big issues, a task list can be used to break up the issue into smaller parts. This will give a breakdown of what needs to be done in order to consider the issue resolved and may also allow developers to handle subtasks rather than one big issue.

When creating an issue, it is important to tag it appropriately. There a variety of tags that can be used, but some examples are “bug”, feature”, and “good first issues”. This last one is helpful for developers who are new to the repository and are looking for a good place to start.

When submitting a pull request, developers can us the syntax “this pull request fixes # …” to link the pull request to issue. When the pull request is merged, the issue will be closed.