QA testing

QA Testing

Verify that a page, feature, or site is working before declaring it shipped. Stack-agnostic. Console-snippet driven for speed.

This skill is faster than accessibility-audit (which goes deeper on WCAG) and performance-optimization (which goes deeper on Core Web Vitals). Use this skill for general QA. Use the specialists for deep audits.

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When to use

• After every deploy (smoke test)
• After launching a new page or feature (standard audit)
• Before a major release (full release matrix)
• Investigating a "something looks off" report
• Pre-launch verification of a site or section

When NOT to use

• Deep accessibility compliance work (use accessibility-audit)
• Deep performance investigation (use performance-optimization)
• Code review or debugging (use code-review-web)
• Initial site setup or technical SEO baseline (use seo-technical)

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Required inputs

• The page URL or site under test
• The tier of QA needed (smoke, standard, or full)
• Browser dev tools access
• Any specific concerns to check beyond the standard tier

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The framework: 3 tiers

QA scales with the stakes. Pick the tier that matches the context.

Tier	When to run	Time	Coverage
Smoke	After every deploy	2 minutes	Critical signals only
Standard	New page or feature	10 minutes	On-page basics, accessibility, structure
Full	Major release, pre-launch	30+ minutes	Comprehensive across all dimensions

Tier 1: Smoke test

The 2-minute "did the deploy break anything obvious?" check. Run after every deploy.

Console snippet (paste in browser dev tools):

const smoke = {
  title: document.title,
  titleLen: document.title.length,
  canonical: document.querySelector('link[rel="canonical"]')?.href,
  h1Count: document.querySelectorAll('h1').length,
  missingAlts: [...document.querySelectorAll('img')].filter(i => !i.hasAttribute('alt')).length,
  schema: [...document.querySelectorAll('script[type="application/ld+json"]')]
    .map(s => { try { return JSON.parse(s.innerText)['@type'] } catch(e) { return 'invalid' } }),
  brokenImages: [...document.querySelectorAll('img')].filter(i => !i.complete || i.naturalWidth === 0).length,
};
console.log(JSON.stringify(smoke, null, 2));

Pass criteria:

• Title exists and is 30 to 60 characters
• Canonical points at the production domain (never staging or preview URLs)
• Exactly one H1
• Zero images missing the alt attribute. An empty alt="" on a decorative image is correct markup and passes; only an absent attribute fails.
• Zero broken images
• Every schema block parses (no invalid entries in the snippet output). Whether the types are the right ones for the page is a Full-tier check, against the Rich Results Test.

If any of these fail, do not proceed with deeper testing until the smoke issue is fixed.

Tier 2: Standard page audit

The 10-minute new-page-or-feature audit. Covers the on-page basics plus accessibility and structure.

Console snippet:

const audit = {
  title: document.title,
  titleLen: document.title.length,
  canonical: document.querySelector('link[rel="canonical"]')?.href,
  metaDesc: document.querySelector('meta[name="description"]')?.content,
  metaDescLen: document.querySelector('meta[name="description"]')?.content?.length,
  ogImage: document.querySelector('meta[property="og:image"]')?.content,
  ogTitle: document.querySelector('meta[property="og:title"]')?.content,
  twitterCard: document.querySelector('meta[name="twitter:card"]')?.content,
  h1Count: document.querySelectorAll('h1').length,
  h1Text: document.querySelector('h1')?.innerText,
  h2Count: document.querySelectorAll('h2').length,
  h2s: [...document.querySelectorAll('h2')].map(h => h.innerText.trim().slice(0, 60)),
  totalImages: document.querySelectorAll('img').length,
  missingAlts: [...document.querySelectorAll('img')].filter(i => !i.hasAttribute('alt')).length,
  brokenImages: [...document.querySelectorAll('img')].filter(i => !i.complete || i.naturalWidth === 0).length,
  externalLinksWithoutNoopener: [...document.querySelectorAll('a[target="_blank"]')]
    .filter(a => !a.rel?.includes('noopener')).length,
  schema: [...document.querySelectorAll('script[type="application/ld+json"]')]
    .map(s => {
      try {
        const d = JSON.parse(s.innerText);
        return d['@graph'] ? d['@graph'].map(x => x['@type']) : d['@type'];
      } catch(e) { return 'invalid' }
    }),
  hasSkipLink: [...document.querySelectorAll('a[href^="#"]')].slice(0, 3)
    .some(a => /skip/i.test(a.textContent) && !!document.getElementById(a.getAttribute('href').slice(1))),
  pageLanguage: document.documentElement.lang || 'NOT SET',
  hasFavicon: !!document.querySelector('link[rel*="icon"]'),
};
console.log(JSON.stringify(audit, null, 2));

Pass criteria (in addition to smoke):

• Meta description: 120 to 160 characters
• og:image, og:title, twitter:card present
• H2s present and descriptive
• All external links with target="_blank" have rel="noopener"
• Page language declared (lang attribute on <html>)
• Favicon present

Tier 3: Full release matrix

The 30-minute pre-launch check. Cover all dimensions.

Dimension	Pass criteria
Smoke and standard	All pass
Accessibility (basic)	Run browser audit tool (e.g., Lighthouse), score above 90
Performance (basic)	Every threshold in the report template's Performance checklist, INP included
Mobile responsiveness	Every viewport in the report template's responsiveness checklist
Cross-browser	Tested in Chrome, Safari, Firefox (and Edge if relevant audience)
Forms	All forms submit successfully and validate correctly
Internal links	No broken internal links (sample 20 random)
External links	All return 200 (sample 10)
Sitemap	Returns 200, lists canonical URLs only
robots.txt	Allows production crawlers, blocks staging if applicable
Security headers	HSTS, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options present
HTTPS	All resources load over HTTPS, no mixed content
404 handling	404 pages return HTTP 404 (not soft 200)
Schema validation	All schema validates in Rich Results Test
Analytics	Events fire as expected on key user actions
Cache behavior	Cache headers appropriate for page type

For headers, run:

fetch(window.location.origin, { method: 'HEAD' })
  .then(r => {
    const headers = {};
    for (const [k, v] of r.headers.entries()) headers[k] = v;
    console.log(JSON.stringify(headers, null, 2));
  });

Look for: strict-transport-security, x-frame-options, x-content-type-options.

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Specific QA snippets

Image audit

const imgs = [...document.querySelectorAll('img')].map(i => ({
  src: i.src.split('/').pop().split('?')[0].slice(0, 60),
  alt: i.hasAttribute('alt') ? (i.alt === '' ? 'DECORATIVE (empty alt)' : i.alt) : 'MISSING',
  width: i.naturalWidth,
  height: i.naturalHeight,
  loaded: i.complete && i.naturalWidth > 0,
}));
console.table(imgs);
console.log({
  total: imgs.length,
  broken: imgs.filter(i => !i.loaded).length,
  noAlt: imgs.filter(i => i.alt === 'MISSING').length,
  decorative: imgs.filter(i => i.alt.startsWith('DECORATIVE')).length,
});

Heading hierarchy check

const headings = [...document.querySelectorAll('h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6')].map(h => ({
  level: parseInt(h.tagName[1]),
  text: h.innerText.trim().slice(0, 80),
}));
console.table(headings);

// Check for skipped levels
const levels = headings.map(h => h.level);
let skipped = false;
for (let i = 1; i < levels.length; i++) {
  if (levels[i] > levels[i-1] + 1) {
    console.warn(`Skipped from H${levels[i-1]} to H${levels[i]}: "${headings[i].text}"`);
    skipped = true;
  }
}
if (!skipped) console.log('No skipped heading levels');

Contrast spot-check

function contrast(bg, fg) {
  function lum(hex) {
    return [hex.slice(1,3), hex.slice(3,5), hex.slice(5,7)]
      .map(h => parseInt(h, 16) / 255)
      .map(v => v <= 0.03928 ? v / 12.92 : Math.pow((v + 0.055) / 1.055, 2.4))
      .reduce((a, v, i) => a + v * [0.2126, 0.7152, 0.0722][i], 0);
  }
  const [l1, l2] = [lum(bg), lum(fg)];
  const r = ((Math.max(l1, l2) + 0.05) / (Math.min(l1, l2) + 0.05)).toFixed(2);
  return r + ':1 ' + (parseFloat(r) >= 4.5 ? 'PASS body' : parseFloat(r) >= 3 ? 'PASS large only' : 'FAIL');
}

// Examples
contrast('#FFFFFF', '#4B5563'); // body color check
contrast('#FFFFFF', '#9CA3AF'); // verify gray choices

Form audit (per form)

[...document.querySelectorAll('form')].forEach((form, i) => {
  const fields = [...form.querySelectorAll('input, select, textarea')].map(field => ({
    type: field.type || field.tagName.toLowerCase(),
    name: field.name,
    hasLabel: !!form.querySelector(`label[for="${field.id}"]`) || !!field.closest('label'),
    required: field.required,
  }));
  console.log(`Form ${i + 1}:`);
  console.table(fields);
});

External link audit

const externalLinks = [...document.querySelectorAll('a[href^="http"]')]
  .filter(a => !a.href.includes(window.location.host));
const issues = externalLinks.filter(a =>
  a.target === '_blank' && (!a.rel?.includes('noopener') || !a.rel?.includes('noreferrer'))
);
if (issues.length) {
  console.warn(`${issues.length} external links missing noopener/noreferrer:`);
  issues.forEach(a => console.warn(a.href));
} else {
  console.log(`All ${externalLinks.length} external links properly attributed`);
}

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Workflow

1. Pick the tier. Smoke for routine deploys. Standard for new work. Full for releases.
2. Run the snippet. Paste the appropriate console snippet, review output.
3. Note failures. Each failure either gets fixed before ship or filed as a known issue.
4. For Standard tier, add: visual review at 375px, 768px, and 1440px. Standard deliberately skips 1024px; the Full tier picks it up with the rest of the template's responsiveness checklist. Test the primary user flow.
5. For Full tier, add: cross-browser testing, Lighthouse audit, schema validation, security headers, 404 handling.
6. Document. Use the template in references/qa-report-template.md for full audits.

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Failure patterns

• Skipping smoke tests on "small" deploys. Half of broken-production incidents start with a deploy that "looked safe."
• Running snippets but not reading the output. The console snippet is a tool. The judgment is reading what it returns.
• Visual-only QA. Eyeballing a page misses missing alt text, broken schema, missing canonical. Always run the snippet.
• Single-browser testing. Mobile Safari and Chrome differ enough to surprise you. Test at least Chrome and Safari.
• No mobile QA. The 375px viewport is where most users live. Test there or get burned later.
• Pass-fail with no remediation. A failed QA must produce a fix or a known-issue ticket. Failed QA that ships unfixed is process theater.

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Output format

For smoke tests: console output is the report.

For standard and full audits: a markdown report at qa-report-[date].md. Use the template in references/qa-report-template.md.

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If required data is unavailable

This skill's output depends on data, measurements, or tool results it cannot generate on its own. When a required input, tool, or data source is unavailable or unverifiable, the sanctioned output is the deliverable with the gap stated: what was needed, what was actually obtained or verified, and which parts of the output are affected. Fabricating, estimating, or interpolating a required number to complete the deliverable is never sanctioned. A stated gap is a complete answer.

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Reference files

• references/qa-report-template.md - Markdown report template for standard and full audits.