qa-automation

Author end-to-end / UI-automation tests derived from the acceptance criteria, not from the implementation. Cover risk-tier critical journeys plus their key negative paths — not every path.

When to use / not use

• Use once acceptance criteria exist (from /api-contract) and an env can be brought up.
• Don't test against the implementation's internals, and never weaken assertions to

make a test pass.

Inputs

feature, acceptancecriteria, optional contractsummary (for cross-service journeys).

Steps

1. Pick the framework from skills.config.yaml → qa.framework (playwright web /

maestro mobile).

1. Derive journeys from the acceptance criteria; rank by risk; pick the critical ones

and the highest-value negative paths. State what is out of scope.

1. Design test data — each test seeds and tears down its own data; no shared mutable state.
2. Author tests with stable selectors (roles/test-ids), explicit waits on conditions,

and assertions that verify observable behavior + the contract's outcomes.

1. Run in a clean env — stack up → seed → ready_check → run → stack down (teardown

always runs).

1. On failure, apply the fix-loop rule (selectors/flakes/waits only), bounded to 3.

Standards every suite must satisfy

• Risk-tiered — critical journeys + key negatives; explicit out-of-scope note.
• Isolated & idempotent — self-contained setup/teardown; order-independent.
• Deterministic — wait on conditions/selectors, never fixed sleeps; stable selectors,

not brittle CSS chains; control time/randomness where possible.

• Cross-service — real contract, not mocks, in the clean stack for cross-service journeys.
• No weakened assertions — self-healing may refresh selectors / re-run only; it must NOT

weaken assertions, permissions, or expected behavior (enforced by workflow.config.yaml → gates.freezeapprovedtests).

• Safe — no real secrets or production data; seeded test data only.
• Reportable — on failure, capture screenshot/trace/video and the failing step.

Edge cases / journeys to include

• Primary happy journey end-to-end across services.
• Validation failures surfaced to the user; permission-denied journey.
• Empty state and "many items" / pagination boundary.
• Slow/failed API handling (retry/error UI); session expiry mid-flow.
• Concurrency/double-submit where the journey allows it.
• Mobile: gestures, back button, deep links, orientation (Maestro).

External skill (provision — test generation)

Read skills.config.yaml → qa.external.generator (e.g. anthropics:webapp-testing, or none). If set, use it to generate tests — the output must still meet the standards above (isolation, determinism, real assertions, risk-tiering). If none, author in-pack.

Output

Write a coverage note to .sdlc/<slug>/qa/suite.md (journeys covered, negatives covered, out-of-scope, data strategy). Return suitepath and testspassed.

Definition of done

Critical journeys + key negatives automated and green in a clean env; tests isolated and deterministic; failures produce artifacts; nothing weakened to pass.