Managing triage stores

A triage store is a repository for the current and historical triage values of CIDs. The state of triage values for a CID changes when a user triages a CID, for example, by changing its classification from Unclassified to Bug.

In Coverity Connect, each stream must be associated with a single triage store so that users can triage issues (instances of CIDs) found in the streams. You can use one triage store for all Coverity Connect streams, or you can associate streams with separate triage stores. When streams are associated with the same triage store, any instances of a CID that are found in the streams will share the same triage values, regardless of the project to which the streams belong.

Triage store configuration and management takes place through the Triage Stores menu.

Figure 1. Example: Triage Stores menu

Figure 1 shows a Default Triage Store configuration.

The Triage Store menu supports the following actions:

• Adding a triage store:

  Creates a triage store. The new store does not contain any triage values, triage history, or stream associations. Note that if you associate a stream with a newly created triage store, any CIDs found in the stream will acquire the default triage values.

  For required permissions, see Assigning roles. A user who adds a triage store becomes the Triage Store Owner of the new triage store. The new store does not have any other role associations.

  The Add button supports this functionality.

• Associating one or more streams with a triage store:

  Assigns the triage values that are stored in a triage store to CIDs in the associated stream (or streams). Note that these CIDs will not retain triage data from any triage store with which their stream was previously associated. If a CID has not been triaged in a triage store with which a stream is associated, the CID will receive the default triage values. For example, assume the following scenario:

  Scenario 1: Triage Stores

  • Stream A is currently associated with TS1, and Stream A contains an instance of CID 123 and CID 456, both with a classification of Pending in TS1.

  • The instances of CID 123 in streams currently associated with TS2 are classified as Bug. CID 456 has never been triaged in TS2.

  In this case, if you change the association of Stream A from TS1 to TS2, the classification of CID 123 in Stream A will change from Pending to Bug. However, the classification of CID 456 will be Unclassified, the default triage value for the Classification issue attribute.

  If you disassociate a stream from a triage store, the store will retain the triage values for CIDs in that stream.

  For required permissions, see Assigning roles.

  The Streams tab supports this functionality.

  Note: Stream links are associated with a triage store through the streams that they reference, so stream links share the same triage data as the streams they reference. For this reason, stream links are not listed in the Triage Stores menu. Triaging a CID in a project that, for example, contains only a stream link will update the triage store with which the referenced stream is associated.

  For additional information about the relationship of stream links to projects, see Primary projects and stream links.

• Deleting a triage store:

  Removes a triage store from Coverity Connect along with all its triage data and role associations. Note that you cannot delete the Default Triage Store or a triage store that has streams associated with it. If you need to delete a triage store, you must first associate its streams with another triage store.

  For required permissions, see Assigning roles.

  The Delete button supports this functionality.

  Note that if you delete a triage store on a Coordinator instance of Coverity Connect when streams from a Subscriber instance are associated with the store, Coverity Connect will associate the streams from the Subscriber instance with the Empty Triage Store.

• Exporting a triage store:

  The Export button creates a JSON file with all relevant triage data from the selected triage store. All triage history and attribute information, including any custom attributes, is included in the exported file.

  See Exported triage store JSON elements for details on the exported JSON elements.

• Importing a triage store:

  The Import button accepts a JSON triage data file and uses it to create a new triage store. Exported triage store JSON elements contains information on the various triage store JSON elements.

  There are several important considerations for formatting the import file:

  • In general, if a triage data file does not specify a value for a particular field, it will be given the default value (e.g. owner will be "unassigned").

  • Validation of imported triage data will only succeed when all the referenced data, such as users and custom triage attributes, are already available on the target Coverity Connect instance.

  • Importing the JSON triage data file creates a new triage store, it does not overwrite an existing one.

  • Import is not available to subscriber instances of Coverity Connect. Coordinators may import triage stores, which will be reflected on subscriber instances.

  • The importing of triage data will create Merged Defects (identified by their merge key value) if they do not yet exist on the target Coverity Connect instance. If a CID is specified, the merged defect will be assigned that CID value.

    This can cause collision errors in the following scenarios:

    1. The merged defect already exists on the target Coverity Connect instance, but has a CID value that differs from the imported triage data.

    2. The merged defect does not yet exist on the target Coverity Connect instance, but its specified CID value is already used by an existing defect.

    In the event of a collision, the error will be flagged, and the user should edit the import file to remove or modify the offending CID value.

• Assigning roles:

  Allows you to assign to users or groups one or more roles that have permissions to a triage store (or to other features in the UI).

  To add a triage store, a user or group requires the Create Triage Stores permission. The System Admin and Project Admin roles have this permission by default.

  To delete triage stores, a user or group requires the Manage Triage Stores permission. The System Admin and Triage Store Owner role have this permission by default.

  To associate a stream with a triage store, a user or group requires the Manage Streams permission on the stream. The user or group also must have one of the following permissions to the triage store: Manage Triage Stores, View issues, or Triage issues. To discover the built-in roles that have these permissions by default, see Figure 1.

  To triage CIDs found in streams that are associated with a triage store, a user (or group to which the user belongs) requires the View issues and Triage issues permissions at the global level or at three separate lower levels (a triage store, a component, and a project or stream). By default, the User group is assigned the Developer role, which has this permission at the global level. To use the permission at lower levels, you might add to a triage store, component, and stream a user (or group) with a role that includes the Triage issues and View issues permissions. (Note that you also need to assign any additional permissions that the user requires to work with the stream and component, such as the ability to view issues and view the source.) For a detailed example, see Scenario: Granting triage permissions on a synchronized Coverity Connect enterprise cluster. To understand permissions and associate them with a role, see Roles and role-based access control.

  The Roles menu supports this functionality.

Coverity Connect provides two built-in triage stores.

Built-in Triage Stores

• Default Triage Store:

  Serves as a default store for new streams (though it is possible to associate a stream with a different store when creating or editing the stream). In addition, this built-in triage store cannot be deleted.

  If you decide that all your streams should share a single triage store, Coverity recommends that you use this store instead of creating a new one for that purpose. For details on this topic, see Scenario: Sharing triage data across code branches (recommended).

  For required permissions to the Default Triage Store, see Assigning roles.

• Empty Triage Store

  This store will be empty except in the case that it contains orphaned streams.

  Users cannot triage instances of CIDs contained in streams that are associated with this store. To enable triage, you need to associate the streams with another triage store. This is the only operation you can perform with the Empty Triage Store.

  Coverity Connect associates streams with this store under the following conditions:

  • When creating a stream, if a user or administrator does not have permission to any triage stores. In other words, the user is not assigned a role that has the Manage Triage Stores, View issues, or Triage issues permission on any triage store.

  • After deleting a triage store on a Coordinator instance when streams from a Subscriber instance are associated with the store. Coverity Connect will associate the streams from the Subscriber instance with the Empty Triage Store.

Triage scope. When a user triages a CID in a project, the update applies by default to all triage stores that are associated with streams (in the project) that contain that CID. However, it is possible for users to perform triage on select triage stores.

User-set attributes for CIDs:

• Classification attribute (default value: Unclassified)

• Severity attribute (default value: Unspecified)

• Action attribute (default value: Undecided)

• Fix Target attribute (default value: Untargeted). This built-in attribute is hidden from the Triage pane by default.

• Ext. Reference attribute (default value: an empty field)

• Owner attribute (default value: Unassigned)

• Comment attribute (default value: an empty field)

• Custom issue attributes

For more information about issue attributes and values, see Triage attributes.