Issue Management

This guide covers how to discover, triage, fix, and track issues surfaced by BrowserStack Code Quality.

Severity Levels

Level	Response Target	Description
Critical	Immediate (same day)	Security flaw or crash risk; blocks release
High	Short term (next sprint)	Significant reliability, security, or performance impact
Medium	Scheduled (backlog grooming)	Moderate maintainability or quality concern
Low	Opportunistic	Minor style / clarity improvement
Info	Informational	Context or recommendation; no action required

Categories

• Security
• Code Quality / Maintainability
• Performance
• Reliability
• Best Practice / Style

Finding Issues

Filtering

Filter by: severity, category, rule tag, file/directory, age (new vs legacy), status (open, in progress, fixed, suppressed), assignee.

Searching

Search across description, file path, rule name, or snippet text. Combine filters + search for precision (e.g., High severity security issues in /services/auth/).

Comparing Scans

Use scan comparison to view delta: new issues, fixed issues, unchanged backlog. Focus remediation on newly introduced Critical/High items first.

Managing Issues

Assignment

Assign to a developer or team lead; optionally include due date or sprint reference.

Suppression

Only suppress with a clear justification: false positive, legacy risk accepted, third‑party code exclusion. Periodically audit suppressed items.

Grouping / Bulk Actions

Select multiple issues to assign, change status, or suppress in batches (use with caution; review representative samples).

Commenting

Use comments for remediation notes, rationale, or links to PRs. Keep history clean and focused on resolution steps.

Lifecycle Workflow

1. Triage – Prioritize newly surfaced issues (Critical/High first).
2. Assign – Allocate ownership.
3. Fix – Apply code change; reference rule guidance.
4. Verify – Run next scan or trigger CI analysis.
5. Close – Issue auto‑closes when no longer detected.

Optional states: Reopen (regression), Suppressed (accepted / false positive), Deferred (scheduled future sprint).

Metrics & Tracking

Monitor:

• Total backlog size.
• Issues by severity & category.
• New vs fixed (trend arrows).
• Mean time to resolution (MTTR) per severity.
• Suppression rate (keep low; <5% preferred).

Use dashboards for trending views and SLA compliance.

Quality Gates Integration

Quality gates can fail a build when threshold conditions are exceeded (e.g., any new Critical issue, >3 new High issues, quality score drop >2%). Treat gate failures as priority items; fix before merge.

Best Practices

• Triage daily to prevent backlog growth.
• Address new Critical/High issues before merging feature branches.
• Document every suppression with rationale + reviewer approval.
• Track MTTR and aim to reduce sprint by sprint.
• Use rule tags to focus thematic improvements (e.g., security hardening).

Troubleshooting

Problem	Possible Cause	Resolution
Many false positives	Rule profile misaligned	Adjust profile; refine rule tags
Suppression abuse	Lack of review process	Implement suppression approval workflow
Slow verification	Infrequent scans	Increase scan cadence / enable PR scanning
Recurring regressions	No pre‑commit checks	Add local/CI pre‑commit analysis

Related Documentation

• Rules Management