The Bug Life Cycle in Software Testing

A bug life cycle is the step-by-step process a software bug goes through from the moment it's found to the moment it's fixed. This process helps teams keep track of bugs and fix them in an organized way.

Finding bugs early is important because it gives developers a chance to fix them right away, before they become bigger problems or harder to remove from the code.

📚 Read More: What is Test Case Management? A Complete Guide

What is a software bug/defect?

Bugs and defects are often used interchangeably since they all refer to problems in software. However, there are several slight nuances that distinguish them:

📚 Read More: How To Find Bugs on Websites

What exactly is a bug life cycle in software testing?

There are two ways to describe the defect life cycle:

• By bug workflow
• By bug status

1. Bug life cycle workflow

The flow chart below gives you some idea of the process that unfolds when a bug is identified. It is based on personal experience with various testing teams, so it’s not representative of every bug process, but it is still a typical cycle for a bug in software testing.

The table below provides a more detailed breakdown of the activities at each stage and the staff members who are likely to be involved. There are three distinct groups: testers, developers, and project managers or leads.

We can also look at the bug life cycle from the status of bugs. Each bug status corresponds to a specific activity in the bug life cycle:

1. New/Open
2. Deferred/Postponed
3. Assigned
4. In Progress
5. Fixed
6. Pending Retest
7. Verified/Closed
8. Reopened
   
   

What is a bug status?

A bug status shows where a bug is in its journey from the moment it's found to when it’s fixed and closed. It helps the team track progress and know who’s responsible for what. Common statuses include:

• New: The bug was just reported. No one has looked at it yet.

• Assigned: Someone (usually a developer) is now working on it.

• In Progress: The fix is being made.

• Fixed: The bug is resolved, but not verified yet.

• In Testing: QA is checking to make sure the fix actually works.

• Closed: QA confirmed the bug is fixed. It’s done.

• Reopened: The bug came back or wasn’t fully fixed.

Bug status essentially "tell the story" of the entire bug life cycle.

Critical bug criteria to keep in mind

Not every bug is critical. But when one is, you need to act fast. A critical bug usually meets one or more of these conditions:

• Breaks a core feature: Something essential like login or payment stops working.

• Blocks testing or release: Testers can’t continue or a release is halted.

• Causes data loss or corruption: User or system data is at risk.

• Affects a large number of users: Widespread impact = high priority.

• Security risk: Sensitive data can be exposed or hacked.

If a bug hits one of these, it needs immediate attention.

Challenges faced in bug life cycle

Common challenges in the bug life cycle include:

• Too many bugs, not enough time: Teams can get overwhelmed, especially during crunch time.

• Poor prioritization: Not all bugs are equal. Without a clear system, teams might waste time on low-impact issues.

• Miscommunication: Developers, testers, and PMs aren’t always aligned on the status, impact, or next steps.

• Lack of tools or process: Without a structured workflow or tracking tool, bugs fall through the cracks.

• Duplicate or unclear reports: Vague or repetitive bug reports slow everyone down.

The more bugs you have, the more important it is to focus on the ones that matter most—and keep the process clean.

How to create a bug report?

Raising a bug with someone is a skill.

There should be subtlety and thoughtfulness in how you do it. As Ministry of Testing puts it, it's both an Art and a Battle.

Here are some steps you should do:

1. Follow a Shared Workflow

Use a bug reporting format the whole team agrees on. Consistency avoids confusion and sets the right expectations. If you don’t have a shared template, propose one.

2. Include the Right Details

A good bug report should answer these questions:

• What did you expect to happen?

• What actually happened?

• How can someone reproduce it, step by step?

• Where did it happen? (Device, browser, version, environment)

• What proof can you share? (Screenshots, logs, error messages)

The goal is to save the next person time and guesswork.

📚 Read More: How to make a good test report?

3. Use “Observation” When It’s Not Clear

Not everything is a full-blown bug. If something just feels off, report it as an Observation. This keeps the team informed without triggering unnecessary drama. It’s a softer signal, which is really useful for edge cases, suspicious behavior, or UX oddities.

4. Be Tactful with Wording

Some developers get defensive when bugs pop up unexpectedly. Approach it like this:

• Compare expected vs observed behavior instead of saying something is simply “wrong”.

• Acknowledge your own uncertainty when needed (“I may have misunderstood the requirement”).

• Offer to raise the bug after a quick chat. Aim to collaborate, don’t just throw it over the wall.

5. Consider the Bigger Picture

• Separate large bug clusters into smaller, individual tickets for clarity.

• Be mindful of volume. Too many tickets at once can overwhelm the team.

• Frame bugs as information sources, not as blame. Each bug brings visibility to what might have been missed.

Best practices to optimize your bug life cycle

1. Establish a consistent, shared workflow

Start with a clearly defined bug life cycle that’s agreed upon by everyone: QA, devs, PMs. Define each status explicitly using the list of bug status we introduced above. However, make sure that you also introduce a soft category like Observation for suspicious behavior that doesn’t clearly qualify as a bug. It keeps the signal without triggering unnecessary alarms.

2. Focus on reproducibility

Each defect should be clean, reproducible, and concise so that the devs can have an easier time localizing the root cause of the bug. That means you should specify in your bug report:

• What was your expectation?

• What actually happened (describe the bug)?

• Steps to reproduce (minimal and clear)

• Environment details (browser, OS, device, version)

• Evidence (screenshots, logs, console errors)

3. Triage based on risk

Attempting to fix every reported defect within a sprint is neither scalable nor efficient. Instead, apply risk-based prioritization to streamline triage decisions. You can categorize bugs as:

• High Risk: Business-critical flows, payments, authentication

• Medium Risk: User-facing but recoverable issues

• Low Risk: Cosmetic, internal, or edge cases

Document triage criteria as part of your QA governance model and ensure it’s consistently applied during backlog grooming and sprint planning sessions.

4. Integrate QA Early and Often

Embedding QA only at the tail-end of development leaves no time for the dev team to troubleshoot. To ensure comprehensive test coverage and early defect detection, embed QA from the outset of the software development life cycle (SDLC).

In other words, QA teams should:

• Participate in requirement analysis and design reviews
• Contribute to acceptance criteria definition during backlog grooming
• Provide test input during architecture discussions (especially for risky integrations)

📚 Read More: How to implement shift-left testing?

5. Make Regression Testing Sustainable

As the product matures, the regression surface inevitably grows. Without a strategy, this leads to bottlenecks and test fatigue. To mitigate that:

• Prioritize regression suites based on risk and recent code changes

• Automate stable, repetitive checks across critical paths

• Continuously refactor and deprecate obsolete test cases

• Maintain a hybrid model, with manual exploratory testing for new risk areas and automation for mature functionality

Regression testing should be reliable, efficient, and provide fast feedback. If it’s slowing down delivery, it needs architectural review.

📚 Read More: How to do regression testing in Agile?

How to deal with a missed bug in production?

Every QA professional will, at some point, miss bugs that make it to production. It doesn’t mean you’re careless, or incompetent. Software is complex, and it's important that you know how to respond to the situation:

1. Own the mistake

You’re not the first QA to miss bugs that end up in production, and you won’t be the last. Seniority doesn’t grant superpowers. Deadlines, assumptions, and lack of time all contribute to missed coverage. You tested what you could with what you had.

2. Shift to root cause thinking

You should treat the bug as a learning artifact. Deep-dive into the issue and ask:

• Why were these bugs missed?

• Were test cases unclear, missing, or incomplete?

• Did you misunderstand a requirement or make incorrect assumptions?

• Was regression coverage too shallow?

3. Use the missed bug to improve the process

Here are some action items:

• Update your test suite with the missed cases

• Propose a cross-check process (e.g., test plan peer reviews)

• Use “observations” or exploratory notes to document odd behavior before it’s a bug

• Start keeping an audit trail of what was tested and why

This shows you're solution-oriented and turning failure into value.

Conclusion

Managing the bug life cycle enables your team to achieve faster feedback loops. Bug life cycle management becomes more and more critical as your product scales (which means more features to test). Without the right tools, regression testing and debugging quickly become bottlenecks.

That’s where Katalon steps in.

Katalon is designed to support testers, developers, and QA managers throughout the entire bug life cycle from detection to resolution:

1. Katalon automatically suggests the Failure Reason based on the test result’s exception.
2. Rich test evidence for faster debugging
3. When a test fails, Katalon helps you investigate efficiently without rerunning the entire suite. For example, you can use Run from here to re-execute the script from the failed step or Enable/Disable certain steps while debugging.
4. One unified repository to store and manage test cases, test data, test objects, and execution history.
   
   

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