| ~S1 | Blocker | Outage, broken feature with no workaround | Unable to create an issue. Data corruption/loss. Security breach. |
| ~S2 | Critical Severity | Broken Feature, workaround too complex & unacceptable | Can push commits, but only via the command line. |
| ~S3 | Major Severity | Broken Feature, workaround acceptable | Can create merge requests only from the Merge Requests page, not through the Issue. |
| ~S4 | Low Severity | Functionality inconvenience or cosmetic issue | Label colors are incorrect / not being displayed. |
If an issue seems to fall between two severity labels, even taking the
[severity impact guidance](#severity-impact-guidance) into account, assign
it to the higher-severity label.
### Severity impact guidance
Severity levels can be applied further depending on the facet of the impact; e.g. Affected customers, GitLab.com availability, performance and etc. The below is a guideline.
| ~S1 | >50% users affected (possible company extinction level event) | Significant impact on all of GitLab.com | |
| ~S2 | Many users or multiple paid customers affected (but not apocalyptic)| Significant impact on large portions of GitLab.com | Degradation is guaranteed to occur in the near future |
| ~S3 | A few users or a single paid customer affected | Limited impact on important portions of GitLab.com | Degradation is likely to occur in the near future |
| ~S4 | No paid users/customer affected, or expected to in the near future | Minor impact on GitLab.com | Degradation _may_ occur but it's not likely |
There can be multiple facets of the impact. The below is a guideline.
| ~S1 | Blocker | Unusable feature with no workaround, user is blocked | Impacts 50% or more of users | Outage, Significant impact on all of GitLab.com | |
| ~S2 | Critical Severity | Broken Feature, workaround too complex & unacceptable | Impacts between 25%-50% of users | Significant impact on large portions of GitLab.com | Degradation is guaranteed to occur in the near future |
| ~S3 | Major Severity | Broken feature with an acceptable workaround | Impacts up to 25% of users | Limited impact on important portions of GitLab.com | Degradation is likely to occur in the near future |
| ~S4 | Low Severity | Functionality inconvenience or cosmetic issue | Impacts less than 5% of users | Minor impact on GitLab.com | Degradation _may_ occur but it's not likely |
If a bug seems to fall between two severity labels, assign it to the higher-severity label.
* Example(s) of ~S1
* Data corruption/loss.
* Security breach.
* Unable to create an issue or merge request.
* Unable to add a comment or discussion to the issue or merge request.
* Example(s) of ~S2
* Cannot submit changes through the web IDE but the commandline works.
* A status widget on the merge request page is not working but information can be seen in the test pipeline page.
* Example(s) of ~S3
* Can create merge requests only from the Merge Requests list view, not from an Issue page.
* Status is not updated in real time and needs a page refresh.
