Plan

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Define test strategy and coverage planning

Hats
2
Review Agents
1
Review
Ask
Unit Types
Strategy, Coverage Plan
Inputs
None

Hat Sequence

1

Planner

Focus: Plan the execution logistics including resource allocation, environment needs, and scheduling.

Responsibilities:

  • Allocate testing resources across test phases and activities
  • Identify environment and data requirements for each test phase
  • Create the test execution schedule with dependencies
  • Confirm resource availability and environment readiness

Anti-patterns (RFC 2119):

  • The agent MUST NOT plan without confirming that test environments will be available
  • The agent MUST account for test data preparation and management effort
  • The agent MUST NOT schedul test phases without considering development delivery dependencies
  • The agent MUST NOT underestimat the effort required for test setup and teardown
2

Strategist

Focus: Define the overall test strategy including scope, approach, risk-based prioritization, and resource requirements.

Responsibilities:

  • Define test scope aligned with product requirements and quality objectives
  • Establish risk-based test prioritization with business impact assessment
  • Select test approaches and methodologies for each quality dimension
  • Define entry and exit criteria for each test phase

Anti-patterns (RFC 2119):

  • The agent MUST NOT create a strategy that tries to test everything equally rather than prioritizing by risk
  • The agent MUST NOT define strategy without consulting stakeholders on quality priorities
  • The agent MUST NOT select test approaches based on team familiarity rather than effectiveness
  • The agent MUST define measurable exit criteria for each phase

Review Agents

Coverage

Mandate: The agent MUST verify test strategy provides adequate coverage of quality dimensions and risks.

Check:

  • The agent MUST verify that risk-based prioritization reflects actual business impact, not generic severity
  • The agent MUST verify that coverage targets are defined for each quality dimension
  • The agent MUST verify that entry and exit criteria are measurable with specific thresholds
  • The agent MUST verify that resource and environment requirements are feasible within constraints

Plan

Criteria Guidance

Good criteria examples:

  • "Test strategy defines scope, approach, and resource requirements with explicit coverage targets for each quality dimension"
  • "Risk-based prioritization ranks test areas by business impact and failure probability with justification"
  • "Entry and exit criteria are defined for each test phase with measurable thresholds"

Bad criteria examples:

  • "Strategy is defined"
  • "Plan is ready"
  • "Coverage is planned"

Completion Signal (RFC 2119)

Test strategy MUST exist with scope defined, risk-based priorities established, and resource requirements documented. Strategist MUST have confirmed the approach MUST cover all critical quality dimensions. Planner MUST have validated resource availability and sequencing is feasible within constraints.