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QA Methodology

Maintained by Trilemma Foundation·3 min read

When to Use This Module​

Use this module during Phase 2 (Build) as a dedicated quality track — not a post-build afterthought. QA creates effective feedback loops, prevents regression, and supports timely delivery of a product that meets initial expectations.

These guidelines do not prescribe a single doctrine or toolchain. They consolidate lessons from other microproducts into opinionated defaults: guiding principles, reference architecture, and pragmatic best practices.

Key Decisions​

QA Philosophy​

We adapt ideas from shift-left testing, continuous testing, and behavior-driven development (BDD) to the realities of modern microproduct development. The methodology has three characteristics:

  1. Practical Software Design
  2. Automation
  3. Feedback Mechanisms Drive Development

Practical Software Design​

Low coupling, deep vertical slices, and intentional project organization promote effective testing and visibility.

Independent components — often organized as vertical slices — make it easier to reason about where business rules and behaviors live. They also help agents build or extend capabilities without affecting unrelated areas.

Building small pieces of functionality end to end ensures incremental progress and allows testing at each step. This does not strictly require UI-to-database slices; a helper class with a clear purpose and a test suite that expresses business requirements is equally valuable.

Well-designed systems embrace business-domain concepts and terminology in specifications, tests, and documentation. Dependencies between modules should be apparent to domain experts.

Use-case focused design allows feature delivery QA and regression testing to mirror actual usage patterns and prioritize value-adding capabilities.

Automation​

Automated tests, CI/CD pipelines, and AI-assisted workflows facilitate rapid development as the codebase and feature set grow.

Feedback Mechanisms Drive Development​

Deterministic checks at specific points in the change lifecycle give useful signals to agents and human reviewers, balancing correctness with development friction.

Good enforcement points include:

  • Agent loop (run on each message or code change)
  • Human QA check (feature branch)
  • Pre-commit/pre-push hooks
  • Pull request
  • CI/CD pipeline
  • Release

Static analysis tools, tests, and automated code review keep project quality and entropy in check. The right toolset and enforcement points vary by team and project, but choosing them deliberately is part of the transition from prototype to product.

Embrace checks not as gates but as drivers. Feedback cycles form an engine that produces increasingly higher-quality artifacts. Automated checks combined with agents that can respond to feedback create a simple but effective multi-agent orchestration setup.

Agent-Assisted Testing Guidance​

  • Prioritize tests for the highest-value workflow and failure modes first.
  • Use known sample datasets to validate deterministic expectations.
  • Require human review for ambiguous or high-risk agent-generated changes.

Repository Entropy Controls​

  • Enforce consistent architecture and naming conventions.
  • Gate merges with required checks and explicit reviewer accountability.
  • Track defect recurrence and unstable areas to prevent drift.

Risk-Tiered Checklists and Release Gates​

Apply checks by risk tier:

  • Low risk: functional path test and basic regression check.
  • Medium risk: error-path, integration, and accessibility spot checks.
  • High risk: full critical-path validation, rollback readiness, and monitoring checks.

Required Artifacts​

Release Readiness Checklist​

  • Critical user path passes in representative conditions.
  • Known high-impact defects are resolved or explicitly mitigated.
  • Observability is in place for new high-risk code paths.
  • Rollback and incident response owner are identified.

Pitfalls​

  • Treating QA as a final gate instead of a continuous feedback loop.
  • Writing tests that do not express business requirements in domain language.
  • Skipping entropy controls until the codebase becomes hard to change.

Contribute Here​

The following topics are open contribution areas:

  • QA automation patterns for agent-first repositories.
  • Post-release quality review templates.

Next Step​

Use the Release Checklist to decide whether a release candidate is ready to deploy, then follow the Deploy Quickstart.

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