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testland/heuristic-test-design-reference

Reference catalog of the four canonical heuristic test-design models - Bach's Heuristic Test Strategy Model (HTSM) with SFDPOT product elements, Whittaker's 'How to Break Software' attack patterns, Bolton's FEW HICCUPPS consistency oracles, and the ISO/IEC 25010 quality characteristics - for use when the tester has no user story, no acceptance criteria, and no documentation. This is the zero-documentation case: it does not read from a written story, and it yields test-case ideas rather than session charters. Use as the reference layer when generating coverage for a feature with no documented input.

70

Quality

88%

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SecuritybySnyk

Passed

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Overview
Quality
Evals
Security
Files

Quality

Content

85%

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

A well-structured, actionable reference catalog with a clear sequenced workflow and appropriate one-level-deep progressive disclosure. The only real weakness is conciseness: it re-explains quality-characteristic and guideword definitions Claude already knows and carries some padded prose.

Suggestions

Trim definitional glosses Claude already knows (ISO 25010 characteristic definitions, SFDPOT guideword explanations) down to the probe prompts that add value.

Tighten the checkout example and remove filler lines like "Each guideword expands the search space" that do not change what Claude does.

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

The catalog is information-dense and largely purposeful, but it re-explains concepts Claude already knows (e.g., the ISO/IEC 25010 characteristic definitions, the SFDPOT guideword glosses) and includes padded lines like "Each guideword expands the search space" and a verbose checkout walkthrough; not a 1 because the material is genuinely reference-oriented, not a 3 because some definition-style explanation could be trimmed.

2 / 3

Actionability

Gives concrete, specific guidance for an instruction-only skill: a sequenced 5-step process, per-guideword "What to probe" columns, per-attack "What you do / Typical bug surface" columns, and named consistency lenses; absence of code is justified for a reference catalog, so it meets the actionable anchor.

3 / 3

Workflow Clarity

"How to use" lays out a clear 1-5 sequence (enumerate SFDPOT -> attack with Whittaker -> classify with FEW HICCUPPS -> cross-check with 25010 -> hand off) plus a coverage-check flag ("zero notes under one guideword is a flag"); no validate/fix loop is needed for ideation, so it meets the clear-sequence anchor.

3 / 3

Progressive Disclosure

The body is a well-organized overview split into clearly headed sections, with the single deep artifact (the end-to-end walk) offloaded to a one-level-deep, well-signaled reference at references/worked-example.md that exists on disk; not a 2 because navigation is clear and references are not nested.

3 / 3

Total

11

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12

Passed

Description

85%

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

A strong, third-person description that is specific and complete with clear when-to-use triggers and a distinct niche. Its main weakness is trigger-term quality: it is jargon-heavy and misses common natural-language variations a user might actually say.

Suggestions

Add natural-language trigger terms a tester would say verbatim (e.g., "exploratory testing", "no spec", "testing with no requirements") alongside the model acronyms.

Consider surfacing the most common phrasing ("no spec / no requirements") earlier in the description before the model enumeration to improve keyword match.

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

Names four concrete, specific models with their constituent parts ("Bach's Heuristic Test Strategy Model (HTSM) with SFDPOT product elements", "Whittaker's 'How to Break Software' attack patterns", "Bolton's FEW HICCUPPS consistency oracles", "ISO/IEC 25010 quality characteristics"), matching the multiple-concrete-actions anchor; not a 2 because the catalog is comprehensive rather than partial.

3 / 3

Completeness

Explicitly answers both what ("Reference catalog of the four canonical heuristic test-design models") and when ("for use when the tester has no user story, no acceptance criteria, and no documentation"; "Use as the reference layer when generating coverage for a feature with no documented input"), satisfying the explicit-trigger anchor.

3 / 3

Trigger Term Quality

Includes some natural trigger phrases ("no user story, no acceptance criteria, and no documentation", "no documented input") but leans on specialist jargon (HTSM, SFDPOT, FEW HICCUPPS, "session charters") and omits common lay variations a tester might say such as "exploratory testing" or "no spec"; not a 3 because coverage of natural terms is incomplete.

2 / 3

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

Occupies a clear niche (zero-documentation heuristic test design) with distinct triggers ("This is the zero-documentation case", "yields test-case ideas rather than session charters") that would not fire for spec-driven or execution skills; unlikely to conflict.

3 / 3

Total

11

/

12

Passed

Validation

100%

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation16 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

No warnings or errors.

Reviewed

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