Field notes / Bug report builder
A bug report the next person can use
Preserve observations, expose missing context, and avoid turning a suspicion into a reported fact.
Give the report one observable claim
“Cart quantity reverts after refresh” tells a reader what to look for. “The database is broken” skips directly to a cause that the report may not establish. Name the affected behavior, not the subsystem you suspect. Keep separate problems in separate reports unless you have evidence that they share a trigger.
Keep steps and outcomes separate
Steps should describe actions another person can repeat: add two items, change the quantity, refresh. Expected and actual outcomes belong in their own fields. Timing can be essential: refreshing before a save finishes is different from refreshing after a success message. If the original notes do not say which happened, mark that timing unknown rather than choosing a convenient interpretation.
Make evidence proportional
Two observations from one reporter are useful, but they do not establish the failure rate for all users. A screenshot shows a state; a network response can show whether a save was acknowledged. Capture the smallest artifact that answers the next question, with tokens and user identifiers removed. Avoid assigning “critical” merely because the report sounds urgent.
End with the missing information
List the browser and build versions, account state, save response, and whether the issue survives a fresh session. A good report is allowed to be incomplete; it should make that incompleteness visible. The AI builder structures the notes you supply. Reproduction status changes only when someone actually follows the steps and records the result.
Worked example
Bug report builder
Authored example — this fixed result only describes the sample input. It is not a live AI response.
Source
On the staging shop, I add two notebooks to the cart. I change quantity to 3, then refresh. It returns to 2. I expected 3 to remain. Happened twice in Chrome; I did not record the version. No network log yet.
Annotated result
TITLE Cart quantity reverts after page refresh ENVIRONMENT Staging shop; Chrome, version unknown. Account state and OS unknown. REPORTED STEPS 1. Add two notebooks to the cart. 2. Change quantity to three. 3. Refresh the page. EXPECTED / ACTUAL Expected: quantity remains three. Reported: quantity returns to two. EVIDENCE Reporter observed this twice. No independent reproduction or network trace is available. NEXT EVIDENCE Record browser/build versions; capture the quantity-update response; check whether the UI waited for the save to complete. Severity remains unassigned.