Delete tags before adding new ones

[kostajh]

Currently I'm mapping issue labels in the activeCollab service as Taskwarrior tags. Let's say an activeCollab issue comes in with the label ON_HOLD. Bugwarrior creates a TW task with this tag. Then the activeCollab issue gets changed to IN_PROGRESS. On the next bugwarrior-pull we now have a task with ON_HOLD and IN_PROGRESS tags assigned.

What do you all think about having Bugwarrior delete any prior tags before assigning them on a task update? /cc @coddingtonbear @ralphbean

[coddingtonbear]

Hmm, this brings up a few of thoughts:

1. Recently, @ralphbean & I discussed a feature allowing one to provide a list of fields that should be updated only when an issue is created (for fields like, for example, priority).
2. It's probably not a good idea to clear out tags from a user's issue since our default behavior now is to preserve all tags that the user has added manually, but if you must, make sure that you're only clearing out tags that you know the ActiveCollab did/could have added.
3. The kind of thing you're describing above might be better handled as a UDA -- maybe, activeCollabStatus or something like that -- especially if each of the state tags are mutually exclusive.

[ralphbean]

Yeah, I vote for the UDA approach in number 3, but number 2 would work as well.

[kostajh]

I ended up going with approach 3, fyi.

[kostajh]

The way I use bugwarrior is that any task created by bugwarrior, is solely managed (updated/deleted) by it. I don't make any modifications to those tasks since they could be overwritten the next time bugwarrior-pull runs. Instead, I have a simple script that will clone a task, strip its foreign ID, and mark the Bugwarrior task as dependent on my new one. I use my new, cloned task for starting/stopping work (which I use for time tracking), adding/modifying annotations, tags, due dates, etc. When I'm done, I have a helper script that will close out the remote task and my local task.

All of that is to say, that's why I felt that clearing out all tags from the BW-managed task is OK, but I get that my workflow is probably different from most people's.

[ralphbean]

Closing this way after the fact. :)