How to establish a bug tracking process
A systematic bug tracking process prevents technical issues from falling through the cracks, protecting your user experience and keeping your development team focused.
To establish an effective bug tracking process, you must choose a central tool like Trello, Linear, or Jira to act as your single source of truth for technical errors. The most critical step is enforcing a standard reporting template for every issue, ensuring that whoever finds the bug provides the exact steps to reproduce it, the expected result, and the actual result. This eliminates back-and-forth communication and allows your technical team to get straight to the fix.
1. Select your tracking tool
For most UK startups and side hustles, the choice of tool depends on your technical complexity:
- Trello: Best for very early-stage projects. It uses a simple card-based system that is highly visual and easy for non-technical founders to understand.
- Linear: Purpose-built for software teams. It is incredibly fast and streamlines the process of moving tasks through a pipeline.
- Jira: The industry standard for larger teams. It offers deep customisation and reporting but can feel overly complex for a solo founder.
2. Standardise the bug report
A bug report that just says "the button doesn't work" is useless. To save time, every report should follow this structure:
- Title: A concise summary (e.g., "Checkout button fails on mobile Safari").
- Description: What was the user trying to achieve?
- Steps to Reproduce: A numbered list of exactly what to click or type to make the bug happen again.
- Environment: Details like the browser (Chrome, Safari), device (iPhone 15, PC), and OS version.
- Visual Evidence: A screenshot or a quick screen recording using a tool like Loom.
3. Define priority levels
Not all bugs are created equal. Use a simple tiering system to decide what to work on first:
| Priority | Description | Action |
|---|---|---|
| P1 - Critical | The app is down or core features (like payment) are broken. | Fix immediately. |
| P2 - High | A major feature is broken but there is a difficult workaround. | Fix in the next 24-48 hours. |
| P3 - Medium | Minor features are glitchy or UI is inconsistent. | Schedule for the next sprint. |
| P4 - Low | Typos, small alignment issues, or "nice-to-haves". | Fix when time permits. |
4. Build the workflow
Create a simple pipeline that cards move through as they are addressed. A standard workflow looks like this:
- Backlog: Where all new reports land initially.
- Triaged: The founder or lead dev has reviewed the bug and assigned a priority.
- In Progress: Someone is actively writing code to fix it.
- Testing/QA: The fix is finished but needs to be checked to ensure it hasn't broken anything else.
- Done: The fix is live for users.
Top Tip: Be ruthless with your backlog. If a P4 bug has been sitting there for six months, delete it. Focus your energy on the issues that actually impact your customers' ability to get value from your software.
Created by hatch. • Updated on April 28, 2026