Inside GitLab's Healthy Backlog Initiative

GitLab is proud of its collaborative relationship with its community and encourages contributions to the platform. However, the growing community participation has resulted in an unwieldy issue backlog. To address this, GitLab's Product and Engineering teams have launched the Healthy Backlog Initiative to refine their approach to managing contributed issues. The initiative will close issues that are no longer relevant, lack community interest, or no longer fit the current product direction, and focus on issues with ongoing community engagement, recent activity, or clear strategic alignment. This will lead to increased innovation, better expectation setting, and faster development and delivery cycles of community-contributed capabilities. The initiative aims to cull the backlog of over 65,000 issues and establish a workstream for a more focused approach to backlog management. The Product and Engineering teams will conduct weekly assessments of the backlog to ensure that they prioritize issues that align with the product strategy and roadmap. The streamlined approach will benefit users by providing sharper focus and faster delivery, clearer expectations, and accelerated feedback loops. The initiative does not diminish the significance of community feedback and contributions, but rather creates clarity around what can be realistically delivered. GitLab remains committed to being transparent and effective stewards of the platform, and continued community participation and feedback are essential to making GitLab stronger.