How to read a Staging Review ticket

Last Updated: March 17, 2025

The goal of this page is to provide an overview of a Staging Review issue ticket.

Collaboration Cycle Staging Review issue tickets are included within the dataset that populates the Collaboration Cycle Dashboard on Domo.

Sample issue ticket

Title

The title of the ticket is a brief description of the issue that’s been identified:

Staging Review finding: [Brief description of issue]

Body

The body of every Staging Review issue ticket will have the following sections.

Product information

This section contains information like the team’s name, the product name, and the feature.

Findings details

This section contains specific information and details about the issue, including what was discovered and suggested solutions.

• VA.gov Experience Standard - issue: The specific Experience Standard that is not being met.

• VA.gov Experience Standard - category: The user experience category that the Experience Standard belongs to.

• Design System review:

  • If yes, indicates that the finding might be related to a specific Design System component and require Design System team’s review.

• Launch-blocking:

  • If yes, this indicates that the issue is launch blocking and must be resolved before the team is permitted to launch in production.

  • If no, the issue doesn’t block the team from launching, but it should still be addressed before launch or in the near future.

• Collab Cycle Reviewer: The Governance Team member who created the issue and their practice area.

Description

The feedback from the Point of Contact/Reviewer specific to the issue found. If more than 1 person is listed as Point of Contact/Reviewer, Issue Details will be provided from all individuals.

Link, screenshot or steps to recreate: This may or may not appear in this section. If this section is there, it is reference information from the Point of Contact/Reviewer. This could be in the form of a link to the staging review page where the issue was found, a screenshot of the issue in the staging environment, or steps to recreate the issue in the staging environment.

Recommended action

The recommended action from the Point of Contact/Reviewer in order to fix, resolve and/or mitigate the issue.

References

Other VA points of reference that may be helpful for the VFS team. This could include links to WCAG guidance, Design System Components, and the Content Style Guide.

Next steps for VFS team

Instructions to the VFS team on how to contact Platform with any questions/concerns, and how and when to close out the ticket. This is auto-populated in every Staging Review issue ticket.

Labels

Default labels

Staging Review issue tickets will have all of the labels listed below:

• collab-cycle-feedback This label indicates that the issue ticket is feedback from a Collaboration Cycle reviewer.

• CC-Dashboard This label indicates that the issue ticket will be included in the dataset for populating the Collaboration Cycle Dashboard in Domo.

• staging This label indicates that the ticket was documented during the Staging Review.

Labels for teams building for the mobile app

If the product is part of the VA mobile app, the tickets will also have the label collaboration-cycle-mobile-app.

Practice area labels

Staging Review issue tickets will have at minimum one at maximum five of the labels listed below:

• accessibility This label indicates that the issue impacts the accessibility practice area.

• design This label indicates that the issue impacts the design practice area.

• content This label in indicates that the issue impacts the content practice area.

• ia This label indicates that the issue impacts the IA practice area.

• QA This label indicates that issues impacts the QA practice area and/or was uncovered during the QA review.

Severity labels

Staging Review issue tickets will have at minimum zero at maximum one of the labels listed below:

• launch-blocking This label indicates that the issue detailed in the ticket is launch blocking and must be resolved before the team is permitted to launch in production.

Previous identification labels

Issues previously identified at Design Intent or Midpoint Review will have the labels identified-at-DI and/or identified-at-MPR, respectively.

Imposter component label

If a finding indicates there are components that look like official Design System components but are not using the official Design System code, they’ll have the label va-imposter.

VA.gov product labels

Staging Review issue tickets will have exactly one product label.

VFS team labels

Staging Review issue tickets will have at minimum one team label.

VA.gov Experience Standards labels

Staging Review issue tickets will have at maximum one VA.gov Experience Standard.

Design system guidance labels

The issue tickets will also have labels referring to specific guidance in the VA Design System. The prefixes for these labels will be:

• va- for Design System components

• content- for Content Style Guide items

• pattern- for Design System patterns

• template- for Design System templates

• foundation- for Design System foundation

Accessibility labels

Staging Review issue tickets will have at minimum zero at maximum one of the labels listed below:

• a11y-defect-0 This label indicates that the issue is an accessibility defect level 0. If this label is on the ticket, the launch-blocking Severity label must also be applied.

• a11y-defect-1 This label indicates that the issue is an accessibility defect level 1. If this label is on the ticket, the launch-blocking Severity label must also be applied.

• a11y-defect-2 This label indicates that the issue is an accessibility defect level 2. If this label is on the ticket, the launch-blocking Severity label may also be applied and is at the discretion of the Accessibility practice area reviewer.

• a11y-defect-3 This label indicates that the issue is an accessibility defect level 3.

• a11y-defect-4 This label indicates that the issue is an accessibility defect level 4.

Please reference the Accessibility defect severity rubric for additional information on the accessibility labels.

Modality labels

These labels indicate which technologies or tools might be impacted by a finding. These labels begin with the prefix modality-.

Context labels

These labels refer to instances where a finding is not specific to one certain part of the interface, but is found in URL, a user flow, a metadata field, or in multiple places across the product/feature. These labels begin with the prefix context-.

Additional labels

Staging Review issue tickets may include additional labels for VFS team reference (eg the product label, status labels, VFS role labels, etc.) or for Platform reference (eg accessibility subject matter, etc.).

Milestones

The Collaboration Cycle GitHub ticket is included in a GitHub milestone with a matching name. All Staging Review tickets will also be added to this milestone. VFS teams are free to assign the Staging Review issue tickets to other Milestones, but please don’t remove the original Collaboration Cycle GitHub Milestone.

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