Issue templates

As mentioned in Schema the generation of issue templates has been automated:

Creating GitHub Issue Templates: A Simple Guide

The process of generating GitHub issue templates is like creating a smart, automated form-maker. Here's how it works:

Updating the Schema

Much like JSON-LD it is possible to reference other JSON Schema fields using resolvable URL links. Using the context, we are able to locate the relevant _schema_ files in other repositories, and extract and up to date list of permissable files (ie ones that do not break the links)

graph TD
    A[Start: Load Schema and Context] --> B[Check Directory Contents]
    B -->|Valid Directory| C[Load JSON Files]
    C --> D[Populate 'contains' Enum with JSON Filenames]
    C --> E[Process Context Definitions]
    E --> F[Update Context-based References]
    F --> G[Modify Schema Properties with Linked Descriptions]
    G --> H[Update Base Reference URL]
    H --> I[Write Updated Schema to File]
    I --> J[End]
    B -->|No _context_ or _schema_ files| J

Building the Template

Now we have an up to date and valid description (schema), it we want to turn it into a GitHub-friendly issue template. To do this we can use the types defined in the schema to decides what type of input is needed: text boxes, dropdowns, checkboxes etc.

Creating the Template

Schema Update Workflow

graph TD
    A[Start: Load Schema] --> B[Expand Schema with $ref Resolution]
    B --> C[Extract Properties]
    C --> D[Generate Markdown Table for Enum Fields]
    C --> E[Create Form Fields]
    E --> F[Dropdown for Enum Fields]
    E --> G[Checkboxes for Array of Enums]
    E --> H[Input for Default Fields]
    E --> I[Dropdown for Booleans]
    F --> J[Append Field to Form Body]
    G --> J
    H --> J
    I --> J
    J --> K[Output GitHub Issue Template]
    K --> L[Save Template to File]
    L --> M[End]

All generated templates are saved in the .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATES folder. From here github knows to offer the selection of newly generated forms to anyone wishing to submit a new item to the repository.

An example google issue form generated by the YAML file:

Special Fields

We have added a few additional fields to the schema to ensure that it can be used for template generation. These are:

Additional work

In addition to the following we also need to run the 'create_labels' script from cmiplld in order for the designated labels to be available for each issue.