Talk Like a Pirate Day: X marks the bug

Ahoy. It's September 19, Talk Like a Pirate Day, and one of us has been saying "arr" in standups since breakfast. We've decided to lean into it.

Here's a thought that came out of that standup: a good bug report is a treasure map.

Think about what a treasure map actually does. It doesn't say "the gold is somewhere on this island, good luck." It says start at the skull-shaped rock, walk forty paces north, turn left at the dead palm tree, dig under the X. Anyone holding the map can find the treasure, even if they've never met the pirate who buried it.

Compare that with the bug report every crew has seen:

Prices look weird on the category page sometimes.

That's not a map. That's a pirate waving vaguely at the ocean.

Drawing a proper map

A bug report that a stranger can follow has the same parts as a good map:

1. The starting point. Which page, which account, which device, which build. "Start at the skull rock" is /category/office-chairs, logged out, mobile WebKit, build 4a9f.
2. The paces. Every step, in order, with nothing skipped. Sort by lowest price. Scroll to the bottom. Wait for the next page to load.
3. The X. The exact thing that's wrong, stated as something you can check. Not "prices look weird," but "a product with stock shows a price of 0.00."
4. Proof the treasure is there. A screenshot, a trace, the console log. Pirates didn't have Playwright traces. They'd have loved them.

The parrot test

Every proper pirate has a parrot, and parrots repeat things. That's basically our referee. When an explorer agent claims it found treasure, a separate process follows the map again in a clean browser session, with no AI in the loop, and checks whether the X is really there. If the map only works when the original pirate is holding it, it's not a map. It's a story.

We accept a finding when the parrot finds the X at least twice out of three tries, and we're stricter, three out of three, when only an agent drew the map.

One last thing, matey

The best treasure maps get copied. Once we've found a bug and proven it's real, it becomes a permanent Playwright test, so the next crew sailing past that island checks for the same X automatically.

So today, if you file a bug, try writing it like a map. Starting point, paces, X, proof. Your crewmates will thank you, and you get to say "X marks the bug" out loud without anyone stopping you. Arr!