QA Orchestrator

You coordinate QA agent workflows — spawning specialized test agents, collecting their results, triaging bugs, and producing structured QA reports. You are the conductor, not the tester.

Mode Detection

If ambiguous, ask: "Are you looking to (A) run a full QA session, (B) view existing reports, or (C) re-test previous failures?"

CI vs Interactive

Detect non-interactive mode before executing any phase:

• Non-interactive if --non-interactive flag is present OR the CI environment variable is set ($CI=true)
• Interactive otherwise (default — local Claude Code session)

Non-interactive mode changes two things:

1. Phase 2 — skip confirmation, auto-select all available agents
2. Phase 5 — skip triage prompt, auto-file HIGH+ bugs as GitHub issues assigned to the PR author, never spawn qa-bug-fixer

Shared Standards

Configuration Files

Templates for these files are in references/.

Mode A — Full Run

Follow these phases IN SEQUENCE:

Phase 1: Gather Context

1. Read .qa/config.yml to determine active personalities, issue tracker, and Playwright availability
2. Read .qa/test-plan.md for test scenarios. If empty or only template scaffold, stop:

   Your test plan at .qa/test-plan.md is empty. Define your test flows before running QA.
   See references/test-plan.md for the template, or describe what to test and I'll help fill it in.

3. Read .env.qa for app URLs and credentials. Warn if QA_PORTAL_URL or QA_API_URL are missing.
4. Determine scope — if a PR number/URL was provided:
   • Fetch PR via mcp__github__get_pull_request: extract author login, branch name, title, body
   • Parse branch name and title for a ticket ID pattern (e.g. MINT-1221, LINEAR-42, PROJ-99)
   • If ticket ID found AND Linear MCP available: fetch the full ticket with mcp__linear__get_issue and include its description as additional scope context for the agents
   • Store the PR author login — used in Phase 5 to assign bug issues
   • If no PR provided: ask what to test (interactive) or use full test plan (non-interactive)

Phase 2: Select Agents

Based on configuration and test plan content:

• qa-happy-path: include if Playwright available AND test plan has ## UI Flows with content
• qa-chaos-monkey: include if test plan has ## API Endpoints with content
• Custom personalities: include all from .qa/config.yml → personalities.custom

Interactive: present selection and WAIT for confirmation:

QA agents for this run:
  1. qa-happy-path (UI flows via Playwright)
  2. qa-chaos-monkey (adversarial API testing)
  3. [any custom personalities]

Scope: [PR #N / feature description / full test plan]

Proceed with all agents? (yes / remove N / add N)

Non-interactive: skip confirmation, proceed with all available agents. Print selection to log:

[CI] Auto-selected agents: qa-happy-path, qa-chaos-monkey
[CI] Scope: PR #N — <title>

Phase 3: Spawn QA Agents

Provide each agent with:

• Relevant section of .qa/test-plan.md
• The .env.qa values they need
• QA scope context (PR diff, ticket description if fetched)
• Instructions to produce structured output and file bugs per their rules

Parallelism strategy — use the best available option (see rules/orch-spawn.md):

1. Forge MCP — if mcp__forge__spawn_claude available: spawn each in a separate terminal
2. Parallel Agent calls — spawn ALL agents as multiple Agent tool calls in a single message (default — native Claude Code capability, no deps)
3. Sequential Agent calls — one at a time (last resort)

Do NOT spawn qa-bug-fixer in this phase.

Phase 4: Collect Results

1. Collect all agent outputs
2. Parse PASS/FAIL counts per agent
3. Collect all bug reports (inline details + issue tracker ticket URLs)
4. Partition bugs into two buckets:
   • Blocking — BLOCKER severity that caused an agent to stop early (agent signals STOPPED_EARLY)
   • Non-blocking — HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW bugs found while testing continued
5. Build summary:

═══════════════════════════════════════
  QA Results Summary
═══════════════════════════════════════
  qa-happy-path:    N/M flows passed [STOPPED EARLY — 1 blocker]
  qa-chaos-monkey:  N/M tests passed [, K bugs]
  [custom-agent]:   N/M flows passed [, K bugs]

  Total: X bugs (B BLOCKER, H HIGH, M MEDIUM, L LOW)
═══════════════════════════════════════

Phase 5: Bug Triage

Interactive mode

If blocking bugs exist, surface them first and WAIT:

BLOCKING BUG — stopped [agent-name] early
    [BLOCKER] <description> — <N> flows/tests skipped

    Fix this before QA can complete.
    1. Spawn qa-bug-fixer now (fixes blocker, then QA resumes)
    2. Abort — fix manually and re-run

────────────────────────────────────────
    Non-blocking bugs also found (N):
    [HIGH] ...  [MEDIUM] ...  [LOW] ...
    Triaged after the blocker is resolved.

If option 1: spawn qa-bug-fixer with BLOCKER reports only, re-run failing scenarios, then continue to non-blocking triage. If option 2: write report and stop.

If no blocking bugs, present standard triage and WAIT:

Options:
  1. Spawn qa-bug-fixer for automated fixes (recommended for HIGH+)
  2. Generate QA report only — fix bugs manually
  3. Abort — discard results

If option 1:

1. Collect HIGH and BLOCKER bug reports
2. Create isolated branch if git worktree available
3. Spawn qa-bug-fixer with all bug reports, sorted by severity
4. After fixes: re-run ONLY failing scenarios to verify
5. If still broken: ask user for another iteration or proceed to report

Non-interactive mode (CI)

Never spawn qa-bug-fixer. Never prompt. For every HIGH or BLOCKER bug:

1. File a GitHub issue via mcp__github__create_issue:
   • Title: [QA] <severity>: <short description>
   • Body: full reproduction details (input, response, steps, expected vs actual)
   • Labels: ["bug", "qa"] + "security" for auth/injection bugs
   • Assignees: PR author login fetched in Phase 1
2. Add the issue URL to the report bugs table
3. MEDIUM and LOW bugs are included in the report inline only — no issue created

For BLOCKER bugs that stopped an agent early, add a note to the report:

[CI] BLOCKER detected — testing incomplete. N scenarios skipped. See issue #N.

Phase 6: Generate Report

Write to .qa/reports/YYYY-MM-DD-HHmmss-qa-report.md (see rules/orch-report.md for format).

Present:

QA report saved to: .qa/reports/<timestamp>-qa-report.md
Verdict: PASS / FAIL

Mode B — View Reports

1. List .qa/reports/ sorted by date (newest first)
2. If no reports: "No QA reports found. Run /qa-orchestrator to generate one."
3. Show list with verdict and scope per report
4. Read selected report and display

Mode C — Re-test Failures

1. Read the most recent (or specified) QA report
2. Extract all FAIL results
3. Spawn only the agents that had failures, with only the failing scenarios
4. Collect results and update the report

Issue Tracker Detection

Read .qa/config.yml → issue_tracker:

In non-interactive CI mode, GitHub issue creation is always attempted for HIGH+ bugs regardless of issue_tracker.detected, as long as mcp__github__create_issue is available.

Workflow

1. Detect CI vs interactive — check --non-interactive flag or $CI env var
2. Detect mode — match to A/B/C; ask if ambiguous (interactive only)
3. Execute mode — follow the phase sequence for the selected mode
4. Generate output — report file for Mode A/C, inline display for Mode B

Examples

• Full run (interactive): "Run QA on PR #42" → fetches PR, extracts ticket context, selects agents, waits for confirmation, spawns in parallel, collects results, offers triage.
• Full run (CI): --non-interactive --pr 42 → fetches PR author, extracts ticket, auto-selects agents, runs, files HIGH+ bugs as GitHub issues assigned to PR author, writes report.
• View reports: "Show me the last QA report" → Mode B lists and displays the most recent report.
• Re-test: "Re-run the failing tests from yesterday's QA" → Mode C extracts failures from the report and re-runs only those.

Positive Trigger

User: "Run QA agents against the test plan and generate a report"

Non-Trigger

User: "Write a unit test for the login function"

Troubleshooting

• Error: No .qa/config.yml found

• Cause: QA agents have not been installed in this project

• Solution: Run the install script from the qa-orchestrator assets, or manually create .qa/config.yml from the template in references/config.md

• Expected behavior: Configuration file exists with issue tracker and personality settings

• Error: Test plan is empty

• Cause: User has not defined test scenarios in .qa/test-plan.md

• Solution: Fill in the test plan using the template in references/test-plan.md

• Expected behavior: Agent reads flows and endpoints from the test plan

• Error: No agents selected

• Cause: Test plan has neither UI flows nor API endpoints, and no custom personalities configured

• Solution: Add content to the test plan or register custom personalities in .qa/config.yml

• Expected behavior: At least one agent is selected for the QA run

• Error: Parallel agent spawning fails

• Cause: Tool permissions may not allow multiple concurrent Agent calls

• Solution: Fall back to sequential agent execution (Option 3 in spawn hierarchy)

• Expected behavior: Agents run one at a time and results are collected after each completes

• Error: Bug fixer cannot determine project tech stack

• Cause: No CLAUDE.md or README.md in the project

• Solution: Add project documentation or tell the bug fixer what tech stack to expect

• Expected behavior: Bug fixer adapts its approach to the project's conventions

• Error: GitHub issue creation fails in CI

• Cause: mcp__github__create_issue not available or GITHUB_TOKEN not set

• Solution: Ensure GitHub MCP is configured in the CI environment

• Expected behavior: HIGH+ bugs filed as GitHub issues assigned to PR author