qa-test-plan

QA Test Plan

Generates a structured QA test plan from completed requirements artifacts. Produces test suites that map directly to business requirements and user personas so QA teams know exactly what to test during each delivery timeline QA round.

Prerequisites

• {base_directory}/requirements/business-requirements.yaml (output from /business-requirements-interview)
• {base_directory}/requirements/technical-requirements.yaml (output from /technical-requirements-interview)

Usage

/qa-test-plan [base-directory]

If no directory is provided, auto-detect by looking for requirements/business-requirements.yaml in the current directory.

If not found, prompt the user: "Where are your requirements documents located?"

Wait for the user to provide a path before proceeding. Store as base_directory.

Process

Step 1: Determine Base Directory and Load Requirements

If no directory parameter was provided, check if requirements/business-requirements.yaml exists in the current directory.

• If found, use current directory as base_directory
• If not found, prompt: "Where are your requirements documents located?" and wait for user response

Once base_directory is determined, read both requirements files from {base_directory}/requirements/. Extract:

From business-requirements.yaml:

• Functional requirements and user stories
• User personas and their primary use cases
• Success criteria and metrics
• Known constraints and edge conditions

From technical-requirements.yaml:

• API surface (endpoints, inputs, outputs)
• Authentication and authorization model
• Non-functional requirements (performance targets, uptime SLAs)
• Data model constraints (required fields, uniqueness, formats)
• Security requirements

Step 2: Identify Test Suites

Group test coverage into suites. Each suite maps to a coherent functional area (not to individual milestones). Derive suites directly from the requirements — do not invent features not present in the source documents.

Standard suite categories to consider (include only those applicable):

Category	Driven by
Authentication	Auth model in technical requirements
Core User Flows	User personas + functional requirements
Data Validation	Data model constraints
API Contract	API design in technical requirements
Permissions & Roles	Authorization model
Error Handling	Edge cases in requirements + API error states
Performance	Non-functional performance targets
Security	Security requirements
Integration	External dependencies in technical requirements

Step 3: Generate Test Cases per Suite

For each suite, write test cases covering:

• Positive — happy path, expected successful outcomes
• Negative — invalid inputs, unauthorized access, missing required fields
• Edge — boundary values, empty states, concurrent operations, large payloads
• Security — injection, unauthorized access escalation, token/session misuse
• Performance — response time under expected load (only when targets are specified)

Each test case must include:

• id — unique, scoped to suite (e.g. tc-auth-001)
• name — plain-language description of what is being tested
• type — positive | negative | edge | security | performance
• priority — high | medium | low
  • high: covers a success criterion or a named persona's primary use case
  • medium: covers a secondary flow or validation rule
  • low: covers an edge/corner case unlikely to affect typical users
• preconditions — system state required before executing the test
• steps — numbered, concrete actions
• expected_result — specific, verifiable outcome
• requirement_refs — IDs of the business/technical requirements this case validates
• tags — optional labels for filtering (e.g. [smoke, regression, auth])

Step 4: Compute Coverage

Calculate coverage metrics:

• Functional coverage — percentage of named functional requirements with at least one high-priority test case
• Persona coverage — percentage of user personas whose primary use case has a positive test case
• Non-functional coverage — boolean per NFR category (performance, security, etc.) — at least one test case exists

Flag any functional requirement with no test case as a coverage gap.

Step 5: Generate qa-test-plan.yaml

Write {base_directory}/delivery/qa-test-plan.yaml.

Create directory if it doesn't exist:

mkdir -p {base_directory}/delivery

Step 6: Gap Analysis

After generating the file, report inline:

## QA Test Plan Gap Analysis

**Project:** [name]
**Test Suites:** [n]
**Total Test Cases:** [n] ([n] high / [n] medium / [n] low)
**Functional Coverage:** [n]% ([n]/[n] requirements have high-priority cases)
**Persona Coverage:** [n]% ([n]/[n] personas covered)

**NFR Coverage:**
[✓ / ✗] Performance tests present
[✓ / ✗] Security tests present
[✓ / ✗] Integration tests present

**Gaps:**
- [requirement or persona with no coverage, if any]

**Recommendations:** [none / list]

Output Format

qa-test-plan.yaml Schema

The output document includes: version, project, generated, sources (reference file paths), summary (test counts by priority, coverage metrics), and test_suites (each with id (ts-slug), name, description, requirement_refs, and test_cases). Each test case has: id (tc-suite-nnn), name, type (positive/negative/edge/security/performance), priority (high/medium/low), preconditions, steps, expected_result, requirement_refs, and optional tags.

See references/output-spec.md for the complete document specification with all fields, coverage calculation rules, and test case structure.

See references/example.yaml for a full example.

Example Output

See references/example.yaml for a complete sample QA test plan.