sumo-qa copilot-instructions.md

QA tasks via sumo-qa MCP

Hard rule: for any QA-shaped request — testing, test plan, test strategy, test approach, regression scope, risk-based testing, exploratory testing, code review for safety-to-merge, scaffolding tests, TDD, mutation testing, finding or validating test data, QA audit, test pyramid design — you MUST call sumo_qa_using_sumo_qa (the entry router) before answering. Do not produce QA advice from general training-data knowledge. When citing principles, techniques, classifications, or approaches, load them first via the sumo_qa_load_* tools and cite the loaded catalogue verbatim; say "not in the catalogue" rather than supplementing from memory.

For QA-shaped requests in this repo (test plans, code review, scaffolding tests, finding test data, deciding QA approach), fetch the relevant prompt from the sumo-qa MCP and follow its checklist.

Available skills (each registered as an MCP prompt with the same name, hyphens replaced by underscores):

• using_sumo_qa — entry router; load this first for any QA intent
• sumo_qa_deciding_approach — pick the QA approach for the work
• sumo_qa_preparing_for_work — plan QA before coding starts
• sumo_qa_creating_test_plan — produce entry/exit criteria, phases, deliverables
• sumo_qa_implementing_with_tdd — red-green-refactor cycle
• sumo_qa_reviewing_before_merge — review local diff
• sumo_qa_strengthening_tests — mutation-testing follow-up
• sumo_qa_finding_test_data — known-good test data discovery and validation
• sumo_qa_answering_testing_question — generic "how do I test this?"
• sumo_qa_strategising — repo-wide QA strategy
• sumo_qa_planning_qa_rollout — turn a QA chunk into a written plan of bite-sized tasks
• sumo_qa_executing_qa_rollout — dispatch a signed-off plan task-by-task to fresh subagents
• sumo_qa_finishing_qa_work — capture evidence and write a PR-ready summary
• sumo_qa_measuring_coverage — run the repo's coverage/mutation tools, collect the results, persist them for the QA report
• sumo_qa_suggesting_external_skill — fallback when no native skill fits the intent
• sumo_qa_closing_qa_gaps — close a named uncovered-behavior gap, one evidenced loop at a time
• sumo_qa_triaging_test_failures — triage a failing/flaky test: classify the cause, name the smallest isolation step before any fix

The skills carry the senior-QA discipline (Iron Laws, checklists, Red Flags). Knowledge catalogues are accessed via the sumo_qa_load_* tools — use them for principles, techniques, classifications, approaches, and specialty tool fits before relying on training-data knowledge.

Repo-map accelerators: when a .sumo-qa/repo-map.json artifact is present, sumo_qa_scan_repo, sumo_qa_analyze_diff_impact, and sumo_qa_query_repo_map provide fast, deterministic evidence over the codebase (inventory, changed-file impact, ranked search) for the review, strategy, and prepare-for-work skills. sumo_qa_generate_qa_report composes the persisted .sumo-qa artifacts into the static local QA report (.sumo-qa/qa-report.html) when the user asks for a QA report or dashboard.

When creating GitHub issues, use the closest template in .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/ and include every required field in the issue body. For implementation tasks raised by an AI agent, use .github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE/ai-task.yml unless a more specific template fits better.