Using GitHub Projects in place of Jira

Create a GitHub Project for your team

• Create a GitHub Project Beta (also known as v2).

  • See the Arch-BOM board as an example.

• Show labels and milestones on your board by choosing the first option under the board view’s drop-down.

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Associate an issue/PR with your team’s GitHub Project

• Add issues/PRs to your team’s board as needed.

• In certain cases, this association is only viewable from the board itself (see warning).

Board and Backlog views

• You may want a separate view for your board and you backlog.

• Add a “backlog” label to an issue/PR that should be on the backlog.

  • If the label doesn’t exist, see the “Project Labels” for creating a consistent label.

• You can filter out backlog items from your Board view using -label:backlog and filter them in to your Backlog view using label:backlog.

  • Note: The shared “backlog” label is not scoped to a team. If multiple teams are tracking the same item in their backlog, it will become a board item for all teams as soon as any one team removes the backlog label, unless another label is added for additional filtering.

Tasks/Sub-tasks

• Add an issue to the most appropriate repo.

• Use GitHub task lists for sub-tasks.

  • Note: The parent/child relationship will only be visible from inside the task or sub-task. It will not be visible from the board view.

Epic

In agile development, an Epic represents a series of user stories that share a broader strategic objective.

• Create a GitHub issue representing the Epic.

  • It is recommended that you choose a single org (and maybe repo) for all related epics.

    • Enables search for these epics within the org, rather than across all of GitHub.

    • Example search: https://github.com/pulls?q=is%3Aopen+org%3Aopenedx+label%3Aevent-bus+label%3Aepic

  • Add the “epic” label. See “Project Labels” section for details.

  • (Optional) Consider a consistent Epic issue title, like: [<FEATURE NAME>] <EPIC TITLE>.

  • Add a description of the Epic.

    • If the Epic has other related Epics, point to a top-level issue that describes the overall project.

      • From the top-level issue, add a search link, or use a GitHub task list to enumerate the Epics.

      • Example top-level issue: https://github.com/openedx/platform-roadmap/issues/28

    • See instructions below for adding milestone details to the Epic description.

  • To track tasks related to the Epic, you can do one or both of the following:

    • Option 1:

      • Create a GitHub task list in the Epic.

      • This list could include text-based acceptance criteria, links to issues/PRs (in any repo), etc.

      • Note: The GitHub project board cannot show Epic task-list associations for issues/PRs. Additionally, when directly viewing an issue or PR, you can only see if it is in a task list within the same org (or possible the same repo?).

        • See milestones for a workaround.

    • Options 2:

      • Use milestones and a search link.

      • See notes on adding milestone details to the Epic.

  • See example Epic issue: https://github.com/openedx/openedx-events/issues/63

• Create milestones representing the Epic

  • In each repo that will contain GitHub issues/PRs for the Epic, create a related GitHub milestone.

  • For consistency, add the milestone details in the Epic description:

    • Milestone Details:
      - Title: [<FEATURE NAME>] <EPIC TITLE> 
      - Description: See <LINK TO EPIC ISSUE> for Epic details.
      - (Optional) Due Date: <DATE>.
        - Important: Date changes need to be fixed in all repos with this milestone defined.
      - Open issues/PRs with milestone: https://github.com/pulls?q=is%3Aopen+milestone%3A%22%<URL-ENCODED MILESTONE TITLE>%22

      • If you will be creating issues/PRs in multiple orgs, and you want to search the milestone across multiple orgs, you’ll want the milestone name to be unique.

      • To get the URL-encoded search URL, go to https://github.com/pulls?q=is%3Aopen and add milestone:"<MILESTONE TITLE>" after is:open in the search bar.

    • Create an instance of the milestone in the same repo as the Epic, and add the milestone to the Epic issue.

    • Milestones link: https://github.com/<ORG>/<REPO>/milestones

  • Since the milestones need to be duplicated, it is useful to have its details in the shared Epic issue.

  • Milestones can be seen in a project’s board view, if it is configured to display them.

  • From an issue/PR, you can easily see its milestone and get a back link to the Epic.

    • This is very important when working in a repo that is maintained by another team, so they can easily see when new issues have plans to be handled.

  • See example milestone: https://github.com/openedx/openedx-events/milestone/1

Private Issues

• If an issue needs to be private, some options include:

  • Create the issue in a private repo, or

  • Create the issue in a public repo with reasonable public details, and reference a private ticket (like private Jira) for the full story.

Project Labels

• GitHub labels can be used for many reasons, including another way to group related tasks.

  • For example, since Event Bus work will likely contain a variety of milestones, an event-bus label will be used to quickly find all of its associated tasks.

  • To see and define labels, use: https://github.com/<ORG>/<REPO>/labels

Name	Description	Color	Preview Image with Color
backlog	Item is on a team's backlog or wish list.	#C5DEF5
epic	Represents a series of user stories that share a broader strategic objective.	#98BB67
event-bus	Work related to the Event Bus.	#C56F68