I'd like to report a bug, what information should I include?

#1

The people involved in Atom (both GitHub employees and volunteers) want it to be the best it possibly can be. Nobody wants to be bombarded with a thousand questions just to get something fixed, so it is good to include the following information at a bare minimum (the more information you can include, the better):

  1. Version of Atom you encountered the bug in
  2. OS and version you’re on
  3. Steps to reproduce the problem
  4. What you expected to happen
  5. What actually happened

Also see the Atom Contributing Guide and this blog post for more suggestions.

Here’s an example from a bug about opening files at specific line numbers:

Reproduced using Atom v0.211.0-fc4f2a1 on Mac OS X 10.10.3.

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Change directory to $HOME
  2. Execute mkdir temp
  3. Execute touch temp/file.tex
  4. Works as expected: Start Atom with atom temp/file.tex:100
  5. Close Atom with Cmd+Q
  6. Change directory to $HOME/temp
  7. Start Atom with atom file.tex:100

Expected: Atom opens with the file.tex file already open
Actual: Atom opens with a new file called file.tex:100 already open

#2

I would hasten to add that “the more the better” does not necessarily include huge log files.
If there is a mile-long log file or stack-trace that would make the post a hassle to read through, it’s better to post it elsewhere (a gist perhaps?) and link to that instead.

#3

Yes, a Gist is generally best … though even they have a maximum size.