Product - Interpreting Release Dates

One of GitLab’s core values is Transparency. We do this to make collaboration easier and do this by default.

Overview

One of GitLab’s core values is Transparency. We do this to make collaboration easier and do this by default.

Transparency is good and it can also mean that there is a lot of information to understand, especially when trying to determine when an Issue on the roadmap may ship. This page highlights the pieces of information that can help give guidance on what state an issue is in and when it might ship. This is especially helpful for giving answers to customers and stakeholders when setting the correct expectations.

GitLab’s Product Development Workflow describes all the different steps that take an issue from ideation to validation to design to development and finally to getting in the hand of end-users. It has full details about every step of the workflow and can be read for specific details.

Intepreting Issue States

There are a few pieces of info to understand when an issue might ship. Looking at each of these in combination with the others should help you understand if an item will ship in the current or a future iteration.

  1. Milestone
  • If an issue is tagged against a milestone, that is the GitLab release it is targeted to be shipped in. These aren’t promises; milestones are subject to change, and we plan ambitiously. This is not a commitment to a customer to deliver a certain scope or at a certain time, nor should it be treated as such.
  1. workflow::<current state> labels

  • The workflow::<current state> label shows what state the Issue is currently at in the Product Development Workflow. The various states of the label mean different things.

    In general, if an issue is in workflow::in review or workflow::verification it is very close to shipping. Other states mean that the issue will likely change DRI several times and may or may not ship in the marked milestone.

  1. Deliverable/Stretch labels
  • The Deliverable/Stretch labels give an indiciation of engineering’s confidence that an issue will complete in the assigned milestone or not, with the former being a high-level of confidence and the latter being a lower possibility. If the issue has neither of these labels and is assigned to the current milestone, it is unlikely to ship.
  1. Issue title and description
  • The Issue’s title and description may indicate that an issue is intended to only cover a portion of a feature, such as UX, front-end, or back-end work. This means that when the issue is completed, that portion of the feature will be done but the whole feature may not necessarily be completed. Check the description of the issue to understand whether it covers the entire scope of a feature or only a part of it.

Other pieces of info to look for

Issues are frequently included as part of a larger Epic of work. Epics may have multiple issues, each with a separate scope and assigned milestones. It can be helpful to look at the Epic an issue is contained in to understand what other related work is planned to understand when everything will be shipped and usable by users.

Still have questions?

If you are still not sure what state an issue is in and want to ensure you set the correct expectations with the customer, please @mention the responsible Product Manager, on the issue or epic, so they can clarify.

Last modified November 3, 2023: Update find and replace script (9507e5be)
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