Defect Lifecycle
The defect lifecycle is the standard sequence of states a bug moves through from discovery to resolution — typically New, Open, In Progress, Fixed, Retest, Verified, and Closed — giving a team a shared, trackable process for managing defects instead of an ad hoc, inconsistent one.
Each state transition typically involves a different person or role: a tester opens the defect, a developer moves it to In Progress and eventually Fixed, a tester then retests and moves it to Verified, and it's finally Closed — with a Reopened state available if verification reveals the fix didn't actually work.
Bug tracking tools (Jira, and dedicated test management platforms) enforce this lifecycle through configurable workflows, often adding intermediate states specific to a team's process — a "Won't Fix" or "Duplicate" resolution path is common, acknowledging that not every reported issue ends in an actual code fix.
