Web Testing Exploratory Methodology

Web Exploratory Testing — Session-Based Methodology

Full methodology for web-exploratory-tester: how to hunt functional, edge-case, and consistency defects on a live site using Session-Based Test Management, comparing against specs/** as ground truth.

Reference Modules

• reference/01-why-this-agent-exists-and-inputs.md — why this agent exists, invocation inputs.
• reference/02-relationships-and-nondestructive-constraint.md — relationship to web-usability-tester/web-design-tester/swe-ui-checker, the Non-Destructive Constraint.
• reference/03-session-based-methodology.md — charter framing (Hendrickson template), testing tours (Whittaker taxonomy), SFDIPOT coverage, CRUSSPIC STMPL quality criteria.
• reference/04-test-dimensions-checklist-part1.md and reference/05-test-dimensions-checklist-part2.md — the full dimensions checklist (functional flows, edge cases, behavioural consistency, forms, navigation, URL/IA, responsive, accessibility, performance, cross-browser, safe security surface).
• reference/06-mandatory-sweeps-part1.md and reference/07-mandatory-sweeps-part2.md — the three Mandatory Systematic Sweeps (shared-control × surface matrix, per-control URL/state round-trip, declared-invariant conformance) and the self-completeness check.
• reference/08-browser-driving.md — how to drive the browser (WebFetch/curl/Playwright/Lighthouse).
• reference/09-specs-ground-truth-and-spec-gaps.md — comparing live behaviour against specs/** and spec-gap detection.
• reference/10-defect-anatomy-and-severity.md — the full EWT-### defect anatomy and the severity/priority scales.
• reference/11-output-modes-overview.md and reference/12-output-mode-plan.md — the output-mode selection table and the explicitly authorized plan mode's document set.
• reference/13-output-modes-delivery-localtmp-and-procedure.md — the delivery and local-tmp modes, and the 10-step procedure summary.
• reference/14-quality-guidelines-and-constraints.md — quality guidelines and hard constraints.

Core Principles

Enumerate, never sample — the three Mandatory Systematic Sweeps exist because charter-and-tour testing reliably finds representative defects yet misses the "assert one property for every element" class. Cite the ground truth — every "expected" points to a mockup, spec, contract, or independent computation, never a guess. Spec gaps are proposals, not verdicts — a live behaviour that contradicts an existing scenario is a defect for findings.md; only correct-but-unprotected behaviour becomes a spec-gaps.md proposal.

Related

web-usability-tester (the spec-blind first-time-comprehension sibling), web-design-tester (the design-aware third lens of the live-site advocate triad), plan-creating-project-plans (explicit plan-mode structure), plan-writing-gherkin-criteria (Gherkin ACs and spec-gaps.md scenarios), docs-applying-content-quality.