Power User Features

Keyboard shortcuts

Monorail offers many keyboard shortcuts. Press ? to see a list of shortcuts. If your text cursor is in a text field, click outside of it or press Escape before pressing ?.

Bookmarks

Every page in Monorail can be bookmarked. The URL of each page can be shared with other users, who will see the contents of that page based on their own permissions. Individual issue comments are also anchors that can be bookmarked.

For example, if your team uses a specific query to see the list of incoming issues that you are responsible for triaging, copy the URL of that issue list and share it. You may want to create a short link (a go/ link) and add a link to it in your team documentation.

There are several query string parameters that can be included in the issue list page links, including:

  • q= is the issue search query.

  • can= is the issue search scope number. This defaults to 2 for open issues, but it can be set to 1 to search all issues, or other values for other items in the scope menu.

  • sort= is a space-separated list of column names with the most significant column first. Each column name can have a leading minus-sign for descending sorting.

  • colspec= is a space-separated list of columns names to display.

  • groupby= is a space-separated list of columns names to group results by.

  • num= is the number of issue results to be shown on each pagination page, which defaults to 100.

  • mode= defaults to list but can be set to chart or grid.

Deep links

It is possible to bookmark Monorail pages that display a form, such as the issue entry page. Furthermore, you may add URL query string parameters to prefill some form fields for the user.

On the issue entry form, these values can be filled in even if the user would normally not see those fields offered. You can use such links in user documentation that guides the user to report an issue that is labeled in a way to make it show up in your team’s triage query.

Those fields are:

  • template= the name of the issue template to use

  • summary= initial issue summary

  • description= initial issue description

  • labels= a comma-separated list of labels (e.g., Type-Bug, Pri-2)

  • owner= email address of the initial issue owner

  • status= the status value for the new issue

  • cc= comma-separated list of email addresses to CC

  • components= a comma-separated list of component paths

  • blocking= a comma-separated list of bugs the new issue will block

  • blockedon= a comma-separated list of bugs the new issue is blocked by

Chrome custom search engines

An easy way to skip a step when searching for issues is to define a keyword for searching monorail in the Chrome browser. Here’s how:

  1. Pop up a context menu in the Chrome Omnibox URL field.
  2. Select "Edit Search Engines...".
  3. Click "Add".
  4. Define a short keyword and use a Monorail URL with a %s placeholder.

For example, you might define "mc" to search /p/chromium issues using URL https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list?q=%s Or, you might use a deep link rather than a search. For example, you could start reporting a defect summary line directly from the Omnibox by defining "md" as https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/entry?template=Defect+report+from+developer&summary=%s

Federated issue tracking

Monorail has some support for referencing issues in other issue tracking tools. You can always reference any issue in any web-based issue tracking tool by pasting the URL of that page into a Monorail issue comment. Googlers may also want to use the "b/" shorthand for internal issues. The "b/" syntax can be used in issue comments, blocking, blocked-on, and merged-info fields. Googlers may see an "i" icon with an option to sign in to preview the summary lines of referenced internal issues.

Crbug.com shortlinks

Separate from Monorail itself, the Chromium developers maintain a service on crbug.com that redirects requests to Monorail pages. This allows for shorter URLs that are easier to type and fit more easily into source code comments.

The supported URLs include:

Autolinking

When you type an issue description or comment, Monorail will automatically convert some parts of the text into HTML links. The following are supported:

  • issue 123 or bug 123 link to issue 123 in the current project.

  • issue project:123 links to issue 123 in the specified project.

  • b/123 links to issue 123 in Google’s internal issue tracker.

  • cl/123 links to changelist 123 in Google’s internal version control system.

  • A git hash links to http://crrev.com for the specified commit, unless otherwise specified in the project.

  • comment 6 or #c6 link to the 6th comment in the current issue thread.

  • go/link-name links to your page through Google’s shortlink service

Commit-log message integration

Most projects are configured to allow the Git Watcher tool to post comments to issues. Including Bug: <bug_id...> in a commit message triggers Git Watcher to post a comment mentioning the commit on the issue when the commit's CL is submitted. Including Fixed: <bug_id...> in a commit message triggers Git Watcher to set the referenced bugs' status to "Fixed".

Both the Bug: and the Fixed: automations accept bug IDs in multiple formats:

  • Fixed: n
  • Fixed: project:n
  • Fixed: <Issue Tracker URL>