testland/state-transition-test-design
Derives human-readable manual test cases from stateful behavior: identify states, events, transitions, and guard conditions, draw the state table including invalid (empty-cell) transitions, choose a coverage level (all states, valid transitions / 0-switch, transition pairs / 1-switch per Chow, all transitions including invalid ones), then derive one test case per coverage item as an event sequence with per-step expected states (ISTQB CTFL v4.0 section 4.2.4). A deep single-technique walkthrough rather than a broad multi-lens case matrix; the output is manual step/expected cases rather than parameterized test code, and it covers how cases are derived rather than how a case record is structured. Use for lifecycle entities (accounts, orders, subscriptions), workflows, and UI wizards where the response to an event depends on the current state.
78
93%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
77%
0.81xAverage score across 10 eval scenarios
Passed
No findings from the security scan
task.mdevals/scenario-8/
Applicants are getting back inside a submitted application
Problem Description
New customers open an account through a four step wizard: identity, address, income, then a review screen where they confirm and submit. Each step has Next and Back, plus Save and exit, which keeps the draft and drops them at the same step when they come back. Sessions expire after 30 minutes of inactivity and the applicant is bounced to the sign-in page.
Once they submit, the application goes to compliance and the wizard is done. The submitted screen has no Next, no Back and no Save and exit - the buttons are simply not rendered.
Support has three tickets from the last fortnight that all start after the submit. One applicant pressed the browser Back button on the confirmation screen, landed on the review step with all their answers still in the boxes, changed their income figure and pressed Submit again; compliance received two applications with different numbers and the same reference. One had the step URL bookmarked from an earlier session and opened it after submitting. One left the wizard open in a second tab, worked in the first tab through to submit, then carried on clicking Next in the old tab.
Our test pack covers the wizard by clicking through it. Every case starts at step one and uses the buttons on screen, and the pack has never once tried to get anywhere the buttons do not go.
Output Specification
Produce docs/onboarding-wizard-tests.md containing:
- The model the cases come from: for each step or state the application can be in, what each of the four things that can happen to it does.
- Numbered manual test cases with steps and per-step expected results. Where a case needs to do something the on-screen controls do not offer, the steps must say how the tester gets there.
- A separate, clearly labelled list of anything the spec does not settle, phrased as questions for the BA.
The identity-verification vendor, the compliance queue, and field-level validation rules are out of scope. Do not write code.
Input Files
Extract the following files before beginning.
=============== FILE: docs/onboarding-wizard.md ===============
Account opening wizard - spec
Steps and states
| State | URL | Screen |
|---|---|---|
| Identity | /onboarding/step/1 | Name, date of birth, ID number |
| Address | /onboarding/step/2 | Current address, time at address |
| Income | /onboarding/step/3 | Employment, annual income |
| Review | /onboarding/step/4 | Read-back of all answers, Submit |
| Submitted | /onboarding/done | Reference number, "with compliance" |
| Expired | /signin | Sign-in page with "your session ended" |
Things that can happen
| Event | Control |
|---|---|
| next | Next button, and Submit on the review step |
| back | Back button |
| save-and-exit | Save and exit link in the header |
| session-timeout | 30 minutes of inactivity |
Four events. Nothing else moves an application through the wizard.
Rules
- Next moves to the following step; on the review step it submits.
- Back returns to the preceding step with the answers still populated. There is nothing before the identity step.
- Save and exit stores the draft and closes the wizard. Reopening it puts the applicant back on the step they left.
- A session that times out sends the applicant to the sign-in page.
- A submitted application is with compliance. The wizard is finished and the done screen renders none of the three controls.
Open with the BA
The behaviour after a session times out has never been written down. The sign-in page appears, but what the applicant gets when they sign back in - the step they were on, the first step, the draft, an empty wizard - is not in this document and the two developers who have worked on it remember it differently.
Note from the frontend
The wizard is a single page app; steps are routes. Every step URL is directly addressable, browser history works normally, and the native app's swipe-back gesture maps to the same route change as the Back button. Hiding a control removes the button, not the route.