# Quality Assurance > Quality Assurance skill for planning, executing, and improving testing across functional and non-functional dimensions. Use when creating test strategies, writing test plans/cases, defining quality gates, coordinating test execution, or triaging defects. Use when this capability is needed. - Skill: `tomevault-io/quality-assurance-3` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add tomevault-io/quality-assurance-3` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/tomevault-io/quality-assurance-3/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: AI & ML - Author: tomevault-io (https://skillmd.com/u/tomevault-io) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/tomevault-io/quality-assurance-3 --- # Quality Assurance A comprehensive QA skill for building and running effective quality programs: strategy, planning, test design, execution, automation, non-functional coverage, and continuous improvement. ## Quick Start 1. Clarify scope, risks, and release criteria. 2. Map test strategy: levels (unit/integration/E2E), types (functional, security, performance, UX), environments, and data. 3. Define quality gates in CI/CD (lint, SAST, tests, coverage, scanning). 4. Plan execution: owners, schedule, entry/exit criteria. 5. Track defects and readiness with metrics; iterate on gaps. ## Core Capabilities ### 1) Strategy & Planning - Define objectives, scope, and risk-based priorities. - Choose test types and levels; align to environments and data needs. - Establish entry/exit criteria, Definition of Ready/Done, and release gates. - Map dependencies (services, test data, accounts, flags). ### 2) Test Design - Create test plans and charters (positive/negative, edge cases). - Derive cases from requirements, flows, and risk areas. - Apply heuristics (CRUD, boundaries, state transitions, error paths). - Specify expected results, data, and observability hooks. ### 3) Functional Coverage - Unit coverage for critical logic; integration for contracts/IO; E2E for happy/critical paths. - Regression suites per component and smoke tests per deploy. - Data variation: boundaries, locales, timezones, permissions, offline/latency. ### 4) Non-Functional Coverage - Performance: baselines, load/stress/soak, SLO/SLA validation. - Security: authZ/authN, input validation, dependency and secret scanning. - Reliability: retries, idempotency, backoff, timeouts, circuit breakers. - Accessibility/UX: WCAG basics (labels, focus, color contrast, keyboard). ### 5) Automation & Tooling - CI gates: lint, unit/integration/E2E, coverage thresholds, SAST/DAST/SCA, secret scanning. - Flake management: quarantine, retry budget, stability tracking. - Test data: fixtures, factories, seeds, synthetic vs production-like data. - Reporting: dashboards for pass rate, coverage, defect trends, MTTR/MTRR. ### 6) Defect Lifecycle & Readiness - Triage: severity/priority, repro steps, environment, logs/traces. - Root cause: code, test gap, environment, data, process. - Exit criteria: critical defects fixed/waived, key scenarios passed, gates green. - Post-release monitoring: error budgets, alerts, rollback/feature flag plans. ### 7) Quality Maintenance & Documentation - Quality handbook: definition of ready/done, severity/priority matrix, gating rules, and escalation paths. - Living test inventory: traceability from requirements/risks to suites (unit, integration, E2E, non-functional) with owners and status. - Release/QA checklists: per environment and per release; include gating thresholds, data prep, observability checks, and rollback validation. - Metrics & reports: coverage, pass rate, flake rate, defect density/escape rate, MTTR/MTRR; publish dashboards and retros. - Knowledge base: known issues, mitigations, runbooks, and playbooks for incident/rollback/triage. ## Workflows ### Workflow: Build a QA Plan 1) Identify scope, risks, and success criteria. 2) Choose levels and types of testing; map to environments and data. 3) Define gates (CI checks, coverage thresholds, blocking severity). 4) Assign owners, schedule, and communication cadence. 5) Publish test cases/charters; set defect triage and reporting. 6) Run, track metrics, and iterate on gaps. ### Workflow: Defect Triage 1) Verify and minimize repro steps; capture logs, traces, env, data. 2) Classify severity/priority; tag area/owner. 3) Assess impact and escape point; create fix/mitigation. 4) Add regression coverage; update dashboards. ### Workflow: Release Readiness 1) Check gates: CI status, coverage thresholds, critical test suites, security scans. 2) Review open defects vs exit criteria; confirm waivers/flags. 3) Validate rollback/feature flags and monitoring in place. 4) Communicate go/no-go with risks and mitigations. --- > Converted and distributed by [TomeVault](https://tomevault.io/claim/josavicentevw) — claim your Tome and manage your conversions.