🐛 Bug Lifecycle Collocations

"Reproduce" — the standard technical term for recreating a bug:

In software development, "reproduce" (or "repro") means to recreate the exact conditions under which a bug occurs. If you can reproduce a bug, you can investigate and fix it. If you can't reproduce it, it's typically marked as "cannot reproduce" (CNR).

Core bug investigation vocabulary:

• reproduce a bug → recreate it: "Can you reproduce it consistently?" / "Reproduced on Chrome 121, macOS only."
• repro steps → short for "reproduction steps" — the exact sequence of actions to trigger the bug
• intermittent / flaky → a bug that only appears sometimes: "It's intermittent — I can reproduce it about 30% of the time."
• deterministic → always reproduces with the same steps

Why not "repeat"? "Repeat" is grammatically possible but unnatural in this context. Developers say "reproduce," not "repeat."

Bug report standard sections:
① Steps to Reproduce (STR) ② Expected Result ③ Actual Result ④ Environment (OS, browser, version) ⑤ Attachments (screenshots, logs)

The standard bug lifecycle:

Understanding the bug lifecycle collocations is essential for communicating status clearly:

Bug status vocabulary in order:

1. Open / New / Reported → bug exists, not yet assigned
2. Triaged → severity and priority assessed: "The PM triaged the backlog."
3. Assigned / In Progress → developer is working on it
4. In Review / In QA → fix submitted, waiting for verification
5. Resolved / Fixed → fix confirmed to work
6. Closed → fully done, often after release or merge
7. Reopened → was closed, but the bug reappeared

Special statuses:

• Won't Fix → acknowledged but not going to fix (low priority, by design, too costly)
• Cannot Reproduce (CNR) → developer couldn't reproduce it
• Duplicate → same as another ticket
• Deferred → moved to a future sprint or release

Key phrase: "The fix was verified in staging — closing the ticket."

"Escalate" — the critical vocabulary for raising urgency:

Escalate means to raise an issue to a higher level of authority, urgency, or visibility. In incident management, escalation means bringing in more senior people, adjacent teams, or leadership to resolve a critical issue faster.

Escalation vocabulary:

• escalate a bug / incident / ticket → increase its urgency or involve higher levels
• escalation path → the defined chain of who to involve at each severity level
• P0 / SEV-1 → highest priority (production down, data loss, security breach)
• page someone → alert on-call person via PagerDuty/OpsGenie: "Page the on-call engineer."

When to escalate:

• The bug's severity is higher than initially assessed
• The fix is blocked and a decision is needed from leadership
• The bug affects a customer SLA or data integrity
• Resolution requires cross-team coordination

The opposite: de-escalate → severity lowered, situation contained: "The incident was resolved — we can de-escalate."

"Reopened" — when a closed bug reappears:

When a bug was previously marked as fixed/closed but the same issue appears again, the ticket is reopened. This is a critical signal in quality tracking: "reopened bugs" indicate a fix that didn't fully address the root cause, or a regression introduced later.

Bug ticket actions vocabulary:

• open / create / report a bug → start a new ticket
• assign a bug → give it to a developer
• resolve / fix a bug → implement the solution
• verify a fix → QA confirms it works
• close a bug → mark as done
• reopen a bug → bring it back as active (fix didn't work)
• mark as duplicate → link to the original ticket
• mark as Won't Fix → acknowledge but deprioritize

Quality metrics language:
"Bug reopen rate" — what percentage of closed bugs are later reopened — is a key quality metric. High reopen rate = insufficient root cause analysis or testing.