breadcrumbs: Issue Tracking > page_name: requesting-a-component-or-label title: Requesting a Component or Label

Requesting a Component or Label

Project members can request the creation of new components or labels by simply filing an issue:

Component versus Label

  • Components are meant to track work on a specific feature/ function.
  • Labels generally are meant to track effort that cuts across multiple components (e.g. Proj(ects), Hotlist(s), etc...)

Component Guidelines

  • Guideline 1 (Clarity): Component name should be descriptive beyond the core project team (i.e. please avoid using non-industry standard abbreviations, code words,project names, etc...)
  • Guideline 2 (Permanence): Component names should describe features/functions and not team names, code locations, etc..., which are more subject to change and make the hierarchy less predictable for people triaging issues.
  • Guideline 3 (Specific): Components are meant to explicitly track functional work areas. If you are trying to track a Proj(ect) or an on-going effort (e.g. Hotlist-Conops), please instead request a label for a (Proj- or Hotlist-)
  • Guideline 4 (Discoverable/ Predictable): Components should be parented where people would logically expect to find them (i.e. follow product decomposition when naming versus team decomposition).

Label Guidelines

  • Guideline 1: Unless a hierarchy of labels is needed, please avoid creating new root parents.
  • Guideline 2: Proj(ects) labels should be used for efforts that have a clear start/ end
  • Guideline 3: Hotlist labels should be used for tracking on-going efforts across multiple components (e.g. Hotlist-GoodFirstBug)

Description Best Practices (for components and labels):

  • Monorail supports scanning the descriptions of components and labels during auto-complete. This has some important implications.
    • (Best practice) Adding abbreviations (e.g. JS, GC, I18N, L10N, WASM, etc...) into the description of your components will give you and your users a nice shorthand.
    • (Best practice) If there are synonyms not currently in your description, please consider adding them.
    • (Best practice) Avoid using negative descriptions (e.g. “Not foo”) as they will appear in auto-complete for the subject being avoided (e.g. “foo”).