SKILL: Testing Plan Authoring

Domain: Quality Assurance, Verification Engineering, SDD Stations 11-13

Activation triggers: test plan, QA strategy, test matrix, E2E journey tests, acceptance criteria traceability, coverage targets, SDD Station 11.

---

1. Role & Engineering Law

The Testing Plan Authoring skill constructs the complete multi-layer verification strategy for the software product.
It enforces the Acceptance Criteria Verification Law:

• Every single Acceptance Criterion ([AC-FR-xxx-y]) defined in the PRD MUST map directly to at least one automated test suite and specific test case.
• Any PRD acceptance criterion without an associated test case triggers a hard gate failure.
• Critical user journeys from the App Flow Document must be covered by end-to-end browser tests.

---

2. Document Structure & Required Sections

Every generated Testing Plan must follow .factory/specifications/templates/09_testing_plan.template.md and contain:

• Header Metadata: Document ID, Version, Status, Parent PRD ID, Parent App Flow ID, Target Specification, QA Lead, Date.
• Section 1: Quality Assurance Strategy & Test Pyramid: High-level testing philosophy and distribution.
• Section 2: Test Strategy by Layer:
  • Structured table defining Layer, Framework/Tooling, Target Scope, Coverage Threshold, and Execution Gate:
    • Unit Tests (pytest / Vitest) -> Gate G7 (>= 85% line)
    • Integration Tests (pytest-asyncio) -> Gate G8 (100% endpoints)
    • Contract Tests (Pydantic / Schemathesis) -> Gate G8
    • E2E / Browser QA (Playwright / BrowserOrchestrator) -> Gate G9
    • Accessibility (axe-core) -> Gate G9 (WCAG 2.2 AA)
    • Performance & Load (Locust / k6) -> Gate G11
    • Security SAST (ECC AgentShield / Bandit) -> Gate G10
• Section 3: Critical User Journey Verification:
  • Step-by-step E2E browser test specifications directly mapped from Journeys J-01, J-02 in 03_app_flow.md.
• Section 4: Test Data & Fixture Isolation Strategy:
  • DB isolation, mocking boundaries, seed data paths.
• Section 5: Requirements Traceability Matrix (PRD Acceptance Criteria → Test Cases):
  • Tabular mapping: PRD Acceptance Criterion | Summary | Automated Test Suite / File | Specific Test Function / Case Name | Gate Link.
• Section 6: Signoff & Gate Linkage.

---

3. Validation Checklist (Quality Gate G7-G13 & G0.5 Pre-Condition)

• Every [AC-FR-xxx-y] from the PRD appears in the Requirements Traceability Matrix.
• Every row links to an explicit test file and test function name.
• Critical user journeys from 03_app_flow.md are accounted for in E2E specifications.
• All 7 test layers specify tools and thresholds.
• Document saved to .factory/specifications/<project>/09_testing_plan.md.