docs(contributing): define the issue and PR labeling standard

The repo carried Gitea's stock label set with no written rule for applying
it, so labels were effectively unused. Establish the standard: every issue
and PR carries exactly one Kind/ and at least one Area/, and document what
each group means, which are exclusive, and who applies them.

Extend the taxonomy to make that workable:

- **Kind/Refactor, Kind/Chore, Kind/Performance** — the stock Kind/ group
  couldn't describe a refactor, a chore, or a perf change, which is much of
  this repo's history. The group now maps one-to-one onto the Conventional
  Commits types already in use, so a PR's label and title agree.
- **A new non-exclusive Area/ group** over the ten subsystems (functions,
  completions, config, docs, tests, CI, integrations, prompt & theme,
  components, scripts). This is what makes the tracker searchable by
  subsystem; Kind/ alone can't answer "what's outstanding in the docs
  pipeline?".
- **good first issue and help wanted**, deliberately unscoped rather than
  under Status/. Status/ is exclusive, and an issue is often both blocked
  and open for someone to pick up; keeping these outside the group lets
  them coexist with a real status.

Priority/, Reviewed/, and Status/ are documented as exclusive and
maintainer-applied, with the rules that keep them meaningful — no
Priority/ label means ordinary priority, Reviewed/Confirmed means actually
reproduced, and a Status/ label is removed once it stops being true.

Also add labeling to the standing PR rules in Branching & Pull Requests,
so it's visible where the rest of the PR checklist lives.
This commit is contained in:
2026-08-31 23:09:01 -04:00
parent af764903e7
commit ce3c44a053
+104
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@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ treat it as a living document, not a final word.
- [Getting Started](#getting-started)
- [Issues](#issues)
- [Branching & Pull Requests](#branching--pull-requests)
- [Labels](#labels)
- [Commit Conventions](#commit-conventions)
- [Fish Coding Standards](#fish-coding-standards)
- [Opinionated Components](#opinionated-components)
@@ -115,6 +116,9 @@ assumes you *do* have push access (maintainers, regular contributors).
branching doesn't touch the working tree.)
- **Merge target is `main`, via PR.** Contributors open the PR; the repo
owner merges it. Don't merge your own PR.
- **Label every PR.** At minimum one `Kind/` and one `Area/`, same as an
issue — see [Labels](#labels). If you can't set labels, say what the
change is in the description and a maintainer applies them.
- **Don't merge until the `## Verification` checklist is fully checked.**
Unchecked boxes are outstanding manual checks, not decoration. See
[Pull request descriptions](#pull-request-descriptions) below.
@@ -179,6 +183,106 @@ bare `#43` is only a link and won't close anything. To point at a related
issue that should stay open, drop the keyword and use `Refs #42`. Leave the
line out entirely when no issue is involved.
## Labels
**Every issue and every pull request carries exactly one `Kind/` label and at
least one `Area/` label.** Everything else is optional, and most of it is
applied by a maintainer at triage rather than by whoever opened the thing.
Labels are scoped: the `Group/Name` form renders as a two-tone chip in Gitea,
and for the three *exclusive* groups below Gitea enforces one-at-a-time by
swapping the old label out when you apply a new one.
### `Kind/` — what this is
Required, and by convention exactly one. Gitea doesn't enforce one-of here,
so pick the dominant character of the change instead of stacking two.
| Label | For |
|---|---|
| `Kind/Bug` | Something is not working |
| `Kind/Feature` | New functionality |
| `Kind/Enhancement` | Improves functionality that already exists |
| `Kind/Documentation` | Documentation changes |
| `Kind/Testing` | The test suite itself |
| `Kind/Refactor` | Restructures code without changing behavior |
| `Kind/Chore` | Tooling, dependencies, housekeeping |
| `Kind/Performance` | Makes existing behavior faster or lighter |
| `Kind/Security` | A security issue |
These deliberately mirror the Conventional Commits types in [Commit
Conventions](#commit-conventions), so a PR's label and its title agree:
`fix``Kind/Bug`, `feat``Kind/Feature` or `Kind/Enhancement`, `docs`
`Kind/Documentation`, `test``Kind/Testing`, `refactor`
`Kind/Refactor`, `chore``Kind/Chore`, `perf``Kind/Performance`.
### `Area/` — what it touches
Required, and non-exclusive on purpose: a change that adds a function, its
completions, and a manual entry gets all three.
| Label | Covers |
|---|---|
| `Area/Functions` | `functions/` |
| `Area/Completions` | `completions/` |
| `Area/Config` | `config.fish`, `conf.d/` — startup and environment |
| `Area/Docs` | `docs/manual/` and the generated manual, man page, and site |
| `Area/Tests` | `tests/` |
| `Area/CI` | `.github/workflows/` and repository automation |
| `Area/Integrations` | `integrations/` |
| `Area/Prompt & Theme` | `themes/` and prompt appearance |
| `Area/Components` | The opinionated-component system (C1-C6) |
| `Area/Scripts` | `scripts/` |
`Area/` is what makes the tracker searchable: it answers "what's still
outstanding in the docs pipeline?" in a way `Kind/` never can. Two edges
worth naming — `Area/Docs` covers the documentation *and its pipeline*, so
`README.md` and this file count even though they sit outside `docs/`; and
`Area/Components` is for the C1-C6 machinery itself, not for every function
that happens to carry a `# COMPONENT` header.
### `Compat/Breaking`
Applied to **any PR whose title carries `!` before the colon**, and to any
issue proposing a change that would. It travels with the `## ⚠️ Breaking
Change` section that such a PR must already include — see [Pull request
descriptions](#pull-request-descriptions).
### `Priority/` — exclusive, maintainer-applied
`Priority/Critical`, `Priority/High`, `Priority/Medium`, `Priority/Low`.
**No priority label means ordinary priority.** Labeling everything defeats
the point, so leave it off unless the item is genuinely more or less urgent
than the rest of the queue.
### `Reviewed/` — exclusive, maintainer-applied
`Reviewed/Confirmed` goes on a bug that has actually been reproduced —
that's the signal separating a report from a known defect.
`Reviewed/Duplicate`, `Reviewed/Invalid`, and `Reviewed/Won't Fix` accompany
closing an issue, always with a comment saying why; a close with only a
label on it is not an explanation.
### `Status/` — exclusive, maintainer-applied
`Status/Blocked`, `Status/Need More Info`, `Status/Abandoned`. These describe
the item's current state, so remove one as soon as it stops being true — a
stale `Status/Need More Info` on an issue that got its answer is worse than
no label, because it reads as still waiting.
### `good first issue` and `help wanted`
Invitations to contributors, applied by a maintainer. Both are deliberately
**unscoped**: they'd be a natural fit under `Status/`, but that group is
exclusive, and an issue is quite often both blocked on something *and* open
for someone to pick up. Keeping them outside the group lets them coexist
with a real status.
Use `good first issue` for work that is genuinely self-contained — a clear
acceptance criterion, one or two files, no need to understand the
opinionated-component system first.
## Commit Conventions
Commit subjects follow [Conventional Commits](https://www.conventionalcommits.org/):