Phabricator/Help/en

Dear Phabricator user, if you have questions, just ask in the Discussion page. We improve our documentation based on the feedback received. If you want to test Phabricator, you should use the Cloud Services instance. (The test instance is unfortunately not always online.)

For a basic overview what Phabricator is and can do,. Or keep reading this page to dive right in and get started.

Creating your account
You can connect your new Phabricator account either with your global Wikimedia wiki account, or with your Wikimedia developer account. In both cases, no separate password is needed.

With your global wiki account



 * First, make sure you are to Wikimedia.
 * If you don't have a Wikimedia account yet, for one.
 * Go to the Phabricator login page (the link shows as an arrow to a door in the top right when you're logged out).
 * Click the sunflower button that says "Login or Register - MediaWiki".
 * You will be asked by MediaWiki.org to approve connecting.
 * Phabricator will ask you for a username. In case of doubt, just use your Wikimedia username, but note that Phabricator username cannot include non-ASCII characters such as العَرَبِيةُ or 中华民族 or Xï, nor include spaces (please just use an underscore " " instead). A valid email address will also be required for verification, but not shown to other users.


 * Click on Manage in the navigation bar on the left.
 * Click Edit Profile and set your Also Known As (for example, to your full name) to make it easier to search for you.

With your Wikimedia Developer account

 * If you have a Wikimedia Developer account &mdash; also known as an LDAP account or Gerrit account or wikitech account — you can also use that to log in. The same Phabricator username can have both MediaWiki.org and LDAP connected. This can be a backup, in the unlikely event Wikimedia SUL is not working.  Connect your Wikimedia SUL and LDAP accounts to a single Phabricator username! Otherwise you will create two separate Phabricator accounts.

Multi-factor authentication

 * We do not encourage using multi-factor authentication on Wikimedia Phabricator except for when you have access to Security tasks. If you still plan to use it, read the multi-factor authentication guidelines and requirements first and then set it up if still wanted.

Troubleshooting

 * If you cannot verify your Phabricator account because you entered an incorrect email address, please add a note on Talk:Phabricator/Help. (Only if that is not possible, contact the Bugwrangler.) We cannot correct your email address but we can delete your account so you can register again.
 * If you find your Phabricator account disabled, please add a note on Talk:Phabricator/Help.
 * If you get an "Email address already taken" error when you try to create a Phabricator account via "Login or Register - MediaWiki" you probably already registered a Phabricator account connected to your Wikimedia Developer account. You will have to log into Phabricator via your Developer account. Use wikitech:Special:PasswordReset if you have forgotten your Developer account password.
 * To change your Phabricator user name for some reason, please add a note on Talk:Phabricator/Help and include a link to your Phabricator profile.
 * To change the global wiki account or developer account that is associated to your Phabricator account:
 * Note that your Phabricator account must be associated to either a global wiki account or a developer account at all times.
 * If you want to change your global wiki account that is connected to your Phabricator account: Log into Phabricator via your developer account that is also connected to your Phabricator account. Then remove your old global wiki account and connect your new global wiki account to your Phabricator account. (If your Phabricator account is only connected to your global wiki account but not yet also to a developer account, connect a developer account to your Phabricator account first.)
 * If you want to change your developer account that is connected to your Phabricator account: Log into Phabricator via your global wiki account that is also connected to your Phabricator account. Then remove your old developer account and connect your new developer account to your Phabricator account. If your Phabricator account is only associated to your developer account but not yet also to a global wiki account, connect a global wiki account to your Phabricator account first.)

Claiming your previous Bugzilla and RT accounts
Follow the link here.

Receiving updates and notifications
Phabricator notifies you about relevant activity, including your own actions.

Phabricator offers several tools to receive the notifications you wish to receive.


 * If you are interested in a single object (a task, a mockup...) just click  in its page. Adding a comment will subscribe you automatically.
 * If you are interested in all the activity within a project, you can click  on the project summary page. There is more information in the Projects user guide under "Watching Projects".

See Phabricator/Help/Managing mail for reducing the amount of mail notifications and about filtering mail notifications.

Troubleshooting
If you receive unexpected mail notifications for a task:


 * You might be subscribed to the task.
 * You might be a member of a project or of a subproject associated to that task. A list of all projects that you are a member of is available.
 * You might watch a project associated to that task. A list of all projects that you watch is available.
 * In your email preferences under "Maniphest Tasks", you might have enabled "One of a task's subtasks changes status".
 * You might have a personal Herald rule set up. Check the "X-Herald-Rules" message header field to see a list of all applied Herald rules.
 * If nothing helps, check the "X-Phabricator-Stamps" message header field for further information. See.

Creating more complex rules for notifications (Herald)
You can create custom (personal) notification rules in Wikimedia Phabricator's Herald. This is a more advanced option and can be difficult to use and should be used carefully due to performance reasons.

Creating a task
There are several ways to create a task, depending on the information you want to carry: Fill the form, leaving the fields you are not sure about unchanged.
 * A new task: click the Bookmark button toward the right side of the top navigation bar. From the dropdown menu, choose Create Task. You will get a blank form.
 * A security problem: click the Bookmark button toward the right side of the top navigation bar. From the dropdown menu, choose Report Security Issue. You will get a form pre-tagged with Security, and with a link to special instructions for filing security bugs.
 * A subtask of an existing task: click Edit Related Tasks… > Create Subtask located in the right column of the current task. The dependency between both tasks will be set, and some values of the parent task will be carried by default (Assigned To, Subscribers, Priority, Projects). The connection between two tasks will be shown in the "Task Graph". Please review and adjust the project tags and the subscribers before creating a subtask!

Phabricator supports some formatting in text areas. See.

Use the live preview at the end of the page to check whether your text looks as you expect.

Selecting projects
In order to relate a task with a project (tag) that uses Phabricator, you just need to start typing its name in the Tags field and select the project from the list of matching projects (the list will only show five matching projects). You can search for projects and read short project descriptions by clicking the magnifier icon in the Tags field. You can add one or more projects to the Tags field. If you are unsure, you can also leave it empty — triagers will take care of tasks that have no project set. There is a (long) list of projects available. Press  to search for projects. (This list is also available at Phabricator/Projects.)

Setting task priority
Priority should normally be set by product managers, maintainers, or developers who plan to work on the task, or by the bugwrangler or experienced community members, not by the reporter filing the bug report or by outside observers. See Phabricator project management for details.

Using email
You can also create tasks by sending email to [mailto:task@phabricator.wikimedia.org task@phabricator.wikimedia.org]. The subject will be used as task title, the body will be used directly as is, and attachments will be included on the task. To set a project, add the corresponding command "!projects" and its hashtag at the beginning of the body, e.g.,. Further commands to set the task assignee, priority or status via email are available.

''Note: if your email signature is not formatted following de facto standards (including "-- " to be separated from the body text) it will be posted as well. You are encouraged to remove private information from your signature in your first attempt, just to be sure.''

Passing certain values in the task creation URL
"Report a bug in Phabricator" link can pass numerous values via URL parameters appended to the generic task creation link.

This is a very advanced feature. Learn more here.

Commenting and editing a task
To reply, you need an account as well.



Phabricator allows you to post and edit comments and descriptions using text formatting and inserting images or other files; see Uploading file attachments. You can use toolbar at the top of the input text area and you can use Phabricator's own formatting.

Use the live preview at the end of the page to check whether your text looks as you expect.

To edit the description of a task, select "Edit Task" in the side bar.

To close a task as a duplicate of another task, select "Edit Related Tasks... > Close As Duplicate" in the side bar.

Formatting and markup


Phabricator supports some formatting in text areas.

Note that Phabricator's own markup language is different from MediaWiki's markup.

Popular use of markup includes:
 * Mentioning users as in  will create a link to their profile and will subscribe them to the task.
 * Adding a task number as in  will create a link to the task including a hover card.   inserts the title of the task in your text.
 * Adding a project name as in  will create a link to the project main page.
 * If you want to quote text, you can simply add " " at the beginning. If you want to reply a comment including it as a quote, click the drop down arrow at the right end of the comment you want to reply.
 * If you want to display an uploaded mockup image file, e.g., like, embedded in your comment, write.
 * If you want to create an external link, e.g.  in wiki markup, use Markdown syntax in Phabricator:
 * If you want to add a web address (URL link) in a comment for example to provide a testcase, copy and paste the full web address from your web browser's address bar, e.g., . Do not use  . Interwiki prefixes like   are not supported in Phabricator.
 * If you want to paste lines of code, add a line with three backticks before and after the code: . Or create a Paste and link to the Paste from the task.
 * Use  to define list items with checkboxes in the task description. Change it to   to resolve a list item.

Uploading file attachments
There are several ways to upload files: You can add a file (for example a screen photo) to a comment or a task description via drag and drop with your mouse. Users can also copy and paste images via the clipboard functionality of their system.

If this is not available on your system you can use phabricator:file/upload and refer to the file number (like "123") that is shown after a successful upload by writing  in a comment. This will create a link to the file. To include the file in the comment, enclose the ID in braces:. Per default it's included as thumbnail. For more formatting options, see Formatting and markup. If you have to upload files frequently and consider the currently available options uncomfortable, you could also add a text panel to your homepage with a direct link.

Note that you cannot upload a file and then decrease the access level to the file (e.g linking it to a restricted security ticket). You would have to delete the file and re-upload it with stricter access permissions. It is recommended to upload files which should have restricted access together with the creation of a restricted (security) ticket. Further, note that anyone with the full URL to a file can download the file or share the link with others. There is no authentication protecting files from being accessed. Phabricator files rely entirely on security through obscurity; guessing the (pseudo-random) URL for any given file would be very difficult, if not impossible. If you need more protection for particularly sensitive files then you should consider a more secure alternative.

If you ever need to delete a file that you uploaded, open the list of files you authored, select the file and click "Delete File" in the sidebar.

Project management in Phabricator
See Phabricator/Project management for a lot more information, e.g. on using project workboards and on Kanban/Scrum workflows.

Creating a project


In Phabricator projects are tags, tags are projects. Hierarchy via sub-projects is available since February 2016. Tasks can be assigned to more than one project, and they can also be submitted without assigning them to any project.

When do you need a project?
In general, you need a project...
 * when you have an established team running one or several projects (start here, ask more only when you need more)
 * when you need a workboard (i.e. a sprint)
 * when you need a tag or keyword to organize a type of task that can be part of any project (for example "Accessibility")

Requesting a new project
See Phabricator/Requesting a new project.

If you maintain or manage a project, please follow this link for more details.

Parent tasks and subtasks
Tasks can be a parent task or a subtask of any number of other tasks. If Task A is not solved until Task B is solved, then Task A is the parent task, and Task B is the subtask. Such relations can be set via "Edit Related Tasks...". Parent tasks and subtasks are displayed under "Task Graph" in the task. This feature can be used to accomplish a few different things:

NOTE: There is a "Edit Related Tasks... > Create Subtask" feature. In addition to setting up the correct parent/subtask relationship, it also carries the CC (subscription) list into the new subtask; the downside of this is that it can create a lot of unwanted noise in many other people's email, forcing them all to manually unsubscribe; it is sometimes better to manually create the new task, and then manually mark it as a subtask, thus letting other people subscribe if they want to.
 * Blockers and Subtasks. A (parent) task might simply be blocked by another (sub)task, representing a dependency (see Special:MyLanguage/Phabricator/Project management on how to add a subtask).
 * Tracking. A "workless" (parent) task blocked by several (sub)tasks might be tracking a collection of (sub)tasks within a release or other time period. Note that "Tracking" here has a different meaning from the deprecated #Tracking tag in Phabricator.
 * Approval. Several (parent) tasks (such as draft team goals) might be blocked by a single (sub)task which represents the draft tasks getting approved, after which those draft goals are now real goals.

Prioritization
See Phabricator/Project management

Assignment
See Phabricator/Project management

"Tracking" tasks
The term "tracking task" was brought over from Bugzilla, where it had a specific meaning: A task which was blocked on other tasks, but which itself did not represent any work, and which was not tied to a specific release/date. An example might be a Task named "Clean up the documentation", which might then have a variety of subtasks, each of which would describe specific work to be done. These "Tracking" Tasks tended to stick around for a long time (or forever), as their subtasks would get resolved but new ones would get created. In Phabricator, projects are favored over 'tracking tasks' with dependencies.

Note, however, that there are other types of work-less umbrella tasks which do still make sense in Phabricator. Notably, "Release" tasks. An upcoming release could be represented by a Task, which lists as subtasks all the actual work tasks which are targeted for that release. Once the release goes out, it can be resolved. A similar use would be to have a task which represents a teams overall goals for the quarter, and then each goal might (or might not) be a blocking subtask.

Search context (global vs advanced)


Phabricator consists of several applications (task management in "Maniphest" being one of them, or Diffusion for code browsing).



There are 2 different search forms:


 * The global search at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/search/query/advanced/, confusingly labeled "advanced search." This one is fairly simple. It is in the upper right corner. By default, it searches across all applications and hence all types of documents (open tasks, closed tasks, code commits, etc…). You can change the default context using the the arrow menu to the left of the search bar. For example, select "Open Tasks" to only show results in open tasks from the Maniphest issue tracker. Or select "Current Application" to search Maniphest in Maniphest, Diffusion in Diffusion etc. Tags specified are unioned (OR'd).
 * Advanced, application specific search, for example at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/query/advanced/ for Maniphest. This one has more fields, and auto-completion that includes "Not in:..." (equivalent to NOT) and "In any:..." (equivalent to OR) (for example, type "echo" in the "Tags" field). There is also an advanced search for most other applications (e.g. file/query/advanced for Files). To only search for tasks / bug reports, use the Maniphest advanced search. Tags specified are intersected (AND'd).

Inside Maniphest, custom, saved searches and advanced search options are listed in the navigation bar on the left.

Search terms
Special care needs to be put in choosing correct search terms.

Some locally-valid properties for the "Query" field:


 * Case insensitive:  is the same as
 * phrase search works:
 * basic tokenization is performed, e.g. to strip punctuation
 * Stemming is performed: "edited" is also found when searching for . However,   does not match   as quoted text does not stem.
 * Substring search is supported:  matches , but   does not.
 * matches  as quoted and substring-operator text uses substring search.
 * Boolean queries to exclude certain terms are possible by using the - symbol before the unwanted term. E.g. use  to exclude "non-fatal" errors from results.
 * To only search in a task title but not in the task description or comments, use  which is the same as  . To search for one term in the task title and other terms anywhere in a task, use   or  . See https://secure.phabricator.com/book/phabricator/article/search/ for more information.

The advanced search forms are not explicit about the logic but in general use AND between different fields. You can exclude specific projects from the results by entering  (equivalent to NOT) and combine several projects via   (equivalent to OR) via the auto-completion suggestions. There's a limit of 5 items in the maniphest autocomplete. To increase this limit, see these userscripts for Chrome and for Firefox.

Alternatives ways to find something
If you don't remember the exact words used in an item you are looking for you can follow one of these paths:


 * use the activity feed and edit the query to be restricted to certain projects or timeframes
 * use the activity feed to list all actions that you performed in a certain timeframe at feed/query/EW2FwdAi.Kfz/
 * use an external search engine;
 * remove all search terms, refine the search only by project etc. and then scan all the possible results manually or use Ctrl+F to search specific strings (this might require setting "Page Size" to a high value to display more than only 100 results);
 * file a new task, mentioning that a past report exists as well, and wait for someone to merge the new report to the old.

Selecting Dates and Date Ranges
This is only available in the Advanced Search.

Using the Date fields like "Created After" and "Created Before" allow entering absolute and relative dates. Note that Maniphest uses UTC.

To get a list of tasks which were created in the last 24 hours, set the "Created After" field to "-24 hours" or "-1 day". Note that "Updated Before" actually means "Last updated before" and that absolute date values like "2014-11-26" refer to UTC time while your time zone setting might be different. The "Updated After" and "Updated Before" fields return any and all changes to a task. For example, when a task is moved to another column in a board it registers as "updated". This may add noise to your search results.

Examples of how Maniphest interprets searches: The "X days ago" range can be confusing. Phabricator interprets today as part of any data set. Even if it is 12:30 UTC, Phabricator will interpret that as a potential day in the range.
 * "02/25/2015" - interpreted as "00:01 on February 25th, 2015" (UTC)
 * "5 days ago" - interpreted as "00:01 on the fourth calendar day before today" (UTC)
 * "2:45 AM 5 days ago" - interpreted as "02:45 on the fourth calendar day before today" (UTC)

Saving and Managing Searches/Queries
Queries can be saved and managed inside Maniphest.

Maniphest offers links to some predefined search queries in the navigation bar on the left. For example, click authored to get a list of tasks that you have created.

Search query addresses (URL) are stable so you can save and reuse them. You can share the address in your web browser's address bar with other people, e.g. via posting the link on a wikipage.

If you want to save a search, select the "Save Query" button at the bottom of the Advanced Search UI.

When looking at the navigation bar on the left in Maniphest, click on the "Edit Queries…" link. You will see a list of your saved queries. All users have a default set which can be deleted in this UI.

Some options in this UI:


 * Use the line elements on the left to drag queries up and down in the list.
 * The "x" will permanently delete a Query.
 * The Pencil icon allows a user to edit the name of a query
 * Clicking on the name of a Query will bring up the search options and results of that query

Once you save a query, you cannot change its parameters, but you can change its name. To edit a query, click on it's name, change parameters and save it as a new query. Also, Phabricator allows users to save multiple queries with the same name.

To make the user name dynamic (e.g. for "Tasks assigned to the person running this query") in searches that you'd like to share with others, select Authors > Magnify glass icon > Browse Users > "Current viewer".

Note that some common queries are also available in the "Activity" tabs on the Phabricator frontpage.

Finding the Maniphest task corresponding to a Bugzilla bug number
This is only available in the Advanced Search.

All Phabricator tasks migrated in 2014 from Bugzilla have a Reference field that contains a value "bz" followed by the number of the equivalent report in Bugzilla. If you want to search the task corresponding to a specific Bugzilla report, use the Reference field in the advanced search or just add 2000.

Using Dashboards
Dashboards are specially designed home pages which can display a wide range of custom information. They can be created, managed and shared between users.

Click here for a detailed Dashboard walkthrough.

Batch edits
Phabricator offers the possibility to perform mass/bulk edits for tasks. At the end of any Maniphest search query you will find a "Batch Edit Selected" to edit all the tasks you have selected using Shift-click. Users willing to use this feature need to join the Triagers group.

Batch editing can be reversed by noting the "Bulk Job" ID that is generated at the start of a Batch Edit. This can be accessed by clicking "Details" before or after executing. On the following page, there will be a "Continue" menu item to the right, which will generate a Maniphest query of all the affected tasks.

If you have to perform the very same 'uninteresting' action on a lot of tasks (cleanup or reorganizing project structures) and you do not want to trigger notifications, ask someone with CLI server access (people listed under "phabricator-admin" or "phabricator-roots") to silence that specific batch edit before running it, so no notifications will be triggered for that batch edit.

Favorites
The Bookmark menu toward the right side of the top navigation bar can be customized with links to your preferred forms and actions. See the Profile Menu instructions for more information.

Personal lists of items
The "Flag For Later" functionality offers marking objects (like tasks or revisions) which "you want to remember to look at later". Eight flag colors are available. Flags are personal and private so your lists cannot be shared with others. Your flagged objects are listed on flag. They can be searched by color or object type, in contrast to tokens.

Phabricator badges
Badges are awarded to users to distinguish certain people or people in a particular group. Currently all active badges can only be awarded by administrators.

Restricting access to tasks
If you are a member of the #WMF-NDA project tag, then access to a task that you plan to create can be restricted to members of the #WMF-NDA project by clicking the Bookmark dropdown in the top bar and selecting "NDA Protected Task".

Access to a task that you plan to create can be restricted to a list of specific users by changing the "Visible To" field to something else than "Public".

Access to an existing task can be changed via "Edit Task" and then changing the "Visible To" field to something else than "Public".

To avoid vandalism, this "Visible To" field is only available to users who are members of some ACL projects. A list of all projects that you are a member of is available.

Security issues
If you want to file a new Security issue, you must follow Reporting security bugs to make sure that the initial task is not public! An existing task can be converted into a Security issue via "Protect as security issue" in the side bar.

Displaying and using a Space
''Spaces (upstream documentation) allow restricting access to groups of objects (like tasks) to members of a specific group only. See Restricting access via Space policies for setting up.''

If you can access at least two spaces, you see an additional Spaces dropdown under "Visible To" when creating and editing an object. Users with access to only one space will not see this control.

In Maniphest's task view, the Space will also be displayed in front of the task summary. You can batch-edit tasks to move them to a different Space.

Note that you will still have to associate the corresponding "public" project (if existing) to a task to make a task in a restricted Space (which you have access to) to show up in search queries and the workboard of the project. The "public" project could be automatically added via requesting a global Herald rule.

When creating tasks in Spaces, use the "Create Advanced Task" option in the "Create Task" dropdown. This option will display an additional Spaces dropdown under "Visible To" in the task creation UI that will allow you to set visibility to the Space for which this task should be visible.

If you instead create a task via the "Create Simple Task" option in the "Create Task" dropdown, then after you create it, you will have to edit the task to restrict visibility to members of the Space. Before this edit, the task will be visible to anyone and notifications about your task might have been sent to public logged IRC channels and other subscribed individuals.

MediaWiki templates and links

 * You can link to Phabricator tasks from wiki pages using  and its shorter version , for instance   generates example.
 * Template:Tracked has been updated to include links to Phabricator objects — see at the right how  is rendered.
 * Template:Phabricator is also available;  generates.

Existing Bugzilla links and templates will still work, because those links will continue to point to  which will redirect them to the converted Phabricator task.

Statistics
Phabricator offers tables showing the open tasks by priority and by either user or project. On every project page you also find a "Reports" link to a Burndown chart for that project. Apart from that, Phabricator doesn't support further statistics, metrics, charts, reports (e.g. over time) or however you may call them, whether built-in or via an API.

Phragile and Phlogiston are further external reporting tool options for Phabricator which were developed by Wikimedia developers.

Exporting task data
The results of an Advanced Search query on maniphest/query/advanced/ can be exported to CSV and JSON formats. Use the "Use Results 🡒 Export Data" in the upper right corner. If you are on the workboard of a project, the column header dropdown menu allows you to "View Tasks as Query" per column.

Code browsing (Diffusion)


Diffusion is the Phabricator repository browser. Another option is using gitiles at https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/plugins/gitiles/?format=HTML for repository read-only mirroring. Right now, we're mirroring some of our Git repositories to Phabricator for demonstration purposes.

To request and set up a new code repository, see Gerrit/New repositories/Requests.

Default fields (Forms)


Phabricator allows some customization of the fields shown for a given task. These are handled via the Forms feature.

API (Conduit)
Conduit is the name of the web API. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/conduit/ offers some explanation and examples. See the Conduit upstream documentation. Also see Phabricator/Bots.

Phatality
Phatality is a plugin for the Wikimedia production logstash installation which makes it easier to create Phabricator tasks for production errors. See Introducing Phatality.

Automated Regular Search Summaries

 * You can get a regular email with the results of a saved Phabricator query.
 * The emails are currently delivered by the PhabSearchEmail tool maintained by RhinosF1 on a weekly or monthly basis although, more frequenices can easily be added.
 * To request a summary email, fill out this form and let RhinosF1 know your email.

Other links

 * Other
 * OAuth consumer phabricator-production, use Special:OAuthManageMyGrants to manage connected apps
 * Phabricator etiquette