Concept · entity · registered
Bug
A flaw in software, recorded as a work item so it can be corrected. Defect is another name for this same flaw. Testing glossaries treat bug, defect, and fault as that flaw in a work product. Some organizations also use defect for a flaw found after release and bug for one found before. That split records when it was found, so both words still name this concept. A bug is not an incident. The incident is an unplanned interruption of a running service, which a bug may cause. Many bugs are found before they harm anyone, and an incident can have a cause other than a bug. A bug is not technical debt. Debt can meet its specification and still make later change expensive. A failure is a loss of ability to operate to specification or to deliver the required outcome. The word error is not a synonym: ITIL uses it for a flaw or vulnerability that may cause incidents, software testing uses it for the human mistake that introduces a defect, and dependability writing uses it for a wrong internal state. A known error is a problem that has been analysed, not a name for this flaw.
Definition
What Bug means
Used in data
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Properties
What we can say about Bug
These properties describe meanings and reference targets. Storage types, required fields, and cardinality belong to the consuming data model.
| Property | Meaning | Values and units |
|---|---|---|
| Bug severity | How far the software's behavior departs from what was specified or expected, from data loss or a crash to a cosmetic miss. It grades the flaw. It does not say when a team will fix it; that order is the work item's priority. Incident severity grades impairment of a running service and is a different attribute. One flaw can have a bug severity and, once it hurts a service, an incident severity as well. | Scalar meaning |
| Bug steps to reproduce | The sequence a person follows to make the flaw appear. It is evidence on the bug, not the severity and not the correction. | Scalar meaning |
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