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Coding & Software

Write a Reproducible Bug Report

Turns messy observations into a bug report with exact steps, expected and actual behavior, environment and what is still unknown.

Designed for general-purpose AI assistantsPublished November 2026

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Turn my rough notes into a bug report an engineer can act on without asking me questions.

Product or component: {{product or component}}
Environment (version, OS, browser or runtime, account type, region): {{environment}}
What I was trying to do: {{goal}}
What I saw: {{what happened}}
What I expected instead: {{expected behavior}}
Any error text, log lines or ids (paste them exactly): none
Frequency and anything that changes it: not sure
Workaround I found: none

Write the report with these parts:
1. Title: one line naming the symptom and where it happens. No words like "broken" or "weird" on their own.
2. Summary: two sentences.
3. Steps to reproduce: a numbered list starting from a known state. If my notes do not give enough detail to write every step, write the steps you can and mark each gap as [need: what is missing].
4. Expected result and actual result, side by side.
5. Environment.
6. Impact: who is affected and how badly, using only what I told you. Do not guess at numbers.
7. Evidence: the error text and ids exactly as I gave them.
8. Unknowns and suggested next checks: what I have not tried (another browser, a clean profile, an older version) that would narrow down the cause.

Rules: never invent a step, version, id or error message. If something important is missing, list the questions at the end rather than filling the gap.

5 required fields are empty and will stay as a {{placeholder}} in the copied text.

How to use it

  1. Write your notes in the order you remember them; the prompt reorders them. Do not tidy them first or you may drop the detail that matters.
  2. Paste error messages and ids exactly. A retyped message is much harder to search for in logs.
  3. Fill in each [need: ...] gap by actually trying the steps again, then ask for a final version of the report.
  4. Run the suggested checks in the last section before filing. Finding that it happens in one browser only turns a vague report into a precise one.

Example output

Illustrative only. Real answers depend on your input and the assistant you use.

Title: Export to CSV fails with "Request timed out" for reports over about 5,000 rows

Summary: Exporting a report with a large date range from the Reports page shows a timeout error and no file is downloaded. Smaller ranges export normally.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Sign in to a workspace on the Team plan.
2. Open Reports and choose the "Orders" report.
3. Set the date range to the last 12 months. [need: approximate row count shown on screen]
4. Click Export, then CSV.

Expected: a CSV file downloads within a few seconds.
Actual: after about 30 seconds the page shows "Request timed out" and nothing downloads.

Environment: Web app, Chrome on macOS, Team plan.

Impact: Blocks the monthly finance export for this workspace. Workaround: export one month at a time.

Evidence: error text "Request timed out" (request id not captured).

Unknowns and next checks: try Firefox, try a 6-month range, and capture the request id from the browser's network panel.

Tips

The bracketed gaps are the point. A report that admits what it does not know is more useful to an engineer than one that fills the gap with a plausible guess.

Attach screenshots or recordings separately; the assistant works from text, so describe in words what the screenshot shows.

If the bug involves private data, replace names, emails and ids with placeholders before pasting, and say that you did.

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