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Points Budgets

Wave Programs may have a per-repo points budget configured, which caps the total points that any single repository can contribute per Wave cycle. This helps ensure that no one repo dominates the reward pool, encouraging a more balanced distribution of issues across all participating repositories.

How It Works

When a points budget is configured on a Wave Program, each approved repository is individually capped at that budget's worth of points (base points plus complexity bonuses, before any featured multiplier) per Wave. For example, with a budget of 500 points, a single repo could have up to five Trivial issues (100 points each) or a mix of complexities totaling 500 points resolved in each individual Wave.

The budget is enforced whenever an issue is added to the Program — whether through the dashboard or the GitHub label workflow. If adding an issue would cause a repo to exceed its budget, the action is blocked.

Points budgets reset at the end of each Wave. Resolved issues from past Waves no longer count against the budget, while unresolved issues carry over until they are completed or removed.

How to stay within your budget

  • Consider which of your issues are the most impactful every Wave, and prioritize adding those to the Program.
  • Set complexity levels accurately and fairly. Balance trivial and complex issues to maximize your impact while staying within budget.
  • Ahead of a new Wave, review which unresolved issues you previously added to the Wave Program are still relevant, and remove any that are no longer a priority. This frees up budget for new issues that may arise later in the Wave cycle.

Viewing Your Budget

You can see each repo's current budget status on the Maintainers → Orgs & Repos page. For each approved repo, you will see:

  • Points used: The total base points currently counting against the budget.
  • Points budget: The per-repo limit set by the Wave Program.

Budget Enforcement

The budget is checked in two places:

  • Dashboard: Adding an issue or increasing an issue's complexity returns an error if the repo's budget would be exceeded.
  • GitHub label: If someone applies the Wave label to an issue that would push the repo over budget, the label is automatically removed and the Drips Wave bot posts a comment explaining why.
  • Re-opening issues: If you close an issue that has not been resolved (i.e. no points awarded, for example if "closed as not planned"), it will remain in the Wave Program, but no longer count against the budget. If you later re-open that issue, it will again count against the budget. If re-opening the issue would cause the repo to exceed its current remaining points budget, it will automatically be removed from the Wave Program.

Decreasing an issue's complexity, or removing an issue from a Wave Program is of course always allowed, even if the repo is currently over budget.

Budget Resets Per Wave

The budget resets at the end of each Wave cycle:

  • Resolved issues from past Waves fall off the budget entirely — they no longer count toward the limit.
  • Unresolved issues carry over and continue to count against the budget until they are completed or removed.

This means that at the start of a new Wave cycle, your available budget depends only on any unresolved issues still active in the Program.