Use GitHub native "Issue Type" for Task/Bug/Feature instead of labels

[quicksketch]

Right now we use labels for type - bug report, type - task, and type - feature request. GitHub introduced "Issue type" as a separate field in 2025. We should convert our existing labels to use these standard fields, as it may help conform with GitHub tooling and other software projects.

Unfortunately, we have several labels that do not have equivalents, i.e. type - documentation and type - question. But I think that is fine, we can just leave those types as labels and convert the matching ones to the new field.

Tasks to complete this:

• Update all existing issues from using labels to using the issue type.
• Update GitHub issue templates to use the new issue type field.
• Update links throughout our documentation and processes to use the link format, i.e. https://github.com/backdrop/backdrop-issues/issues?q=type%3AFeature instead of https://github.com/backdrop/backdrop-issues/issues?q=label%3A%22type%20-%20feature%20request%22

[NormPlum]

I think the type - documentation label can become Type: Task. And I believe GitHub tries to separate questions/discussions into the Discussions section: https://docs.github.com/en/discussions Or perhaps we just use the Forum for that?

[indigoxela]

Having both (label and dedicated type) is confusing. Not sure what the benefit of the independent type field may be, but switching might add more clarity.

It just takes some volunteer(s) to go through all our open issues. At least, the more active ones.

@NormPlum losing type "type - documentation" would be a pity - it's about doc blocks, from which our official docs are built. It's nice to have that as a label. Maybe we keep that one?

[quicksketch]

It just takes some volunteer(s) to go through all our open issues. At least, the more active ones.

Yeah, quite relevant considering our work on #3798, GitHub as of right now does not have an option to apply a change to all pages of a listing. With 25 items per page and 1457 current feature requests, we'd need to apply the batch operation 59 times for the current feature list (plus 100 pages of bug reports and 73 pages of tasks).

Of course we could probably fix this with an API script, which seems a bit risky but it probably viable if done carefully.

[NormPlum]

losing type "type - documentation" would be a pity

I think we should still keep the label, but rename it to just 'documentation' (like we have a 'design' label), and use 'Type: Task' as well for those issues.

[yorkshire-pudding]

I've started using these new types but this conversation is welcome and I do think it would make sense. We do need to keep documentation but I wonder would they also fall into another category:

• typo, incorrect text -> bug
• improving either by extension or clarification -> feature (though this might not be desirable if we limit these to minor releases)
• update to reflect change in core or to point to Backdrop documentation -> task

And I believe GitHub tries to separate questions/discussions into the Discussions section: https://docs.github.com/en/discussions Or perhaps we just use the Forum for that?

I think the Forum is for that. Starting "Discussions" here would create another place. Also, forum is open to search engines but I don't know if discussions are. We know Wikis aren't unless (a) project has a lot of stars (b) the Wiki is locked to collaborators only. Issues seem to be a bit hit and miss and I think there is a bit of a delay before they are indexed.

Of course we could probably fix this with an API script, which seems a bit risky but it probably viable if done carefully.

We could test an API script on a contrib project.