Best practices for organizing bug reports and feature requests in GitHub Projects

[jennystudenroth]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Issues

Body

Hi everyone,

I'm exploring better ways to organize bug reports and feature requests for a web-based project, and I'd like to learn how other developers use GitHub Issues and Projects to manage this workflow.

For a project with multiple features, user-reported problems, and ongoing improvements, it can become difficult to prioritize tasks and keep track of what needs attention first.

I'd appreciate your suggestions on a few questions:

Do you use GitHub Issue templates to ensure bug reports include all the necessary details?

How do you distinguish bugs, feature requests, and general maintenance tasks?

Do you use labels, milestones, or custom fields in GitHub Projects to prioritize work?

What workflow works best for tracking an issue from reporting through testing and completion?

I'm working on a web project in the video-downloading space, fdown.media, and I'm interested in applying a more structured issue-tracking workflow.

I'd appreciate any practical recommendations or examples from your own projects.

Thanks!

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[MalikAhed]

For a small web project like fdown.media, I’d keep the workflow simple: use two issue forms (Bug report and Feature request), then ask each form for the minimum useful context. For bugs: expected result, actual result, steps to reproduce, browser/device, and a screenshot or URL. For features: user problem, proposed outcome, and priority. GitHub documents issue forms here: https://docs.githubfast.kdns.fr/en/communities/using-templates-to-encourage-useful-issues-and-pull-requests/syntax-for-issue-forms

Use a small, consistent label set such as type:bug, type:feature, priority:high|normal|low, and area:ui|backend. Put workflow fields such as Status, Priority, Area, and Target release in one GitHub Project instead of creating dozens of labels. A practical status flow is Triage → Ready → In progress → Review → Done. Keep a Triage view for new reports, a Board view for active work, and a Roadmap view grouped by target release.

When an issue is ready, link the pull request to it; when the PR merges, verify the fix, add a short release note if users need to know, and then close the issue. This keeps reports, planning, and verification connected without making contributors learn a complicated process. GitHub’s Projects overview is here: https://docs.githubfast.kdns.fr/en/issues/planning-and-tracking-with-projects/learning-about-projects/about-projects

If this matches the workflow you needed, please mark it as the answer so it’s easy for others to find.