Skip to content

Points Budgets

Wave Programs may have two points budgets configured: a per-repo budget that caps the points any single repository can contribute per Wave, and a per-org budget that caps the combined points across all of an org's approved repos per Wave. These caps help ensure that no one repo or org dominates the reward pool, encouraging a more balanced distribution of issues across all participating repositories.

How It Works

When points budgets are configured on a Wave Program, an issue counts toward the budget at its pre-multiplier points — that's the issue's base points plus its complexity bonus, before any featured-repo multiplier is applied. Every active issue from a given repo counts against that repo's per-repo budget, and every active issue from any of an org's approved repos also counts against that org's per-org budget.

For example, with a per-repo budget of 500 points and a per-org budget of 2,000 points, a single repo could resolve up to five Trivial issues (100 points each) per Wave, and any one of the org's approved repos could draw from the shared 2,000-point org pool — but the combined points across all of the org's repos cannot exceed 2,000.

Both caps are enforced whenever an issue is added to the Program — whether through the dashboard or the GitHub label workflow. If adding an issue would cause either the repo or the org 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 either 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 your current budget status on the Maintainers → Orgs & Repos page:

  • The Orgs section shows one card per org you're a member of (with at least one approved repo), with a Wave Program selector and the org's points used / per-org budget for that Wave.
  • The Repo Applications section shows each approved repo with its points used / per-repo budget.

In both places the "points used" value is the total pre-multiplier points (base + complexity bonus) currently counting against the budget for the active Wave.

Budget Enforcement

Both budgets are checked in three places:

  • Dashboard: Adding an issue or increasing an issue's complexity returns an error if either the repo's or the org's budget would be exceeded.
  • GitHub label: If someone applies the Wave label to an issue that would push the repo or the org over budget, the label is automatically removed and the Drips Wave bot posts a comment explaining which budget was exceeded.
  • 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 either budget. If you later re-open that issue, it will again count against both budgets. If re-opening the issue would cause the repo or the org 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 or org is currently over budget.

Budget Resets Per Wave

Both budgets reset at the end of each Wave cycle:

  • Resolved issues from past Waves fall off the budgets entirely — they no longer count toward either limit.
  • Unresolved issues carry over and continue to count against both budgets 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.

FAQ

I need more points in my budget

If you have a strong case for needing more points in your per-repo or per-org budget — particularly if it's a monorepo, or an org with many active repos — please open a support ticket on the Drips Discord and provide details about your situation.