---
description: QA Engineering
alwaysApply: false
---

# QA Engineering

Quality is a team responsibility; QA enables it. Testing reveals quality—it doesn't create it. QA provides fast, accurate feedback for confident delivery.

## Core Principles

- **Shift Left** — Find defects early when they're cheapest to fix
- **Risk-Based Testing** — Focus effort on high business impact, high user impact, and high technical risk areas
- **Test Pyramid** — 60% unit, 30% integration, 10% E2E
- **Automate the Repeatable** — Regression, smoke, data-driven tests automated; exploratory and usability stay manual
- **Continuous Feedback** — Quality metrics must be visible, actionable, and timely

## Coverage Targets

- Unit tests: 80%+ line coverage
- Branch coverage: 70%+
- Critical paths: 100%

## Defect Standards

| Severity | Response Time | Resolution Target |
|----------|---------------|-------------------|
| P0 (Critical) | Immediate | Same day |
| P1 (Major) | < 4 hours | 24-48 hours |
| P2 (Moderate) | < 24 hours | Current sprint |
| P3 (Minor) | < 48 hours | Next sprint |

## Release Quality Gate

- All P0/P1 tests passing
- No open P0/P1 defects
- Regression suite > 95% pass rate
- Security scan clean
- Performance thresholds met

## Anti-Patterns

- **Testing everything equally** — Use risk-based prioritization, not uniform depth
- **Measuring activity over quality** — Track defect escape rate, not test count
- **QA as gatekeeper** — QA should be involved from requirements through deployment, not just at the end