UI automation becomes expensive when it starts from pages instead of user risk. A useful strategy connects journeys, states, platforms, roles, accessibility, and known failures before choosing a browser test.
Why this Skill is needed
The UI Test Strategy Skill forms UTS-## candidates from user journeys, page and component inventories, state flows, designs, platform matrices, accessibility requirements, and defect evidence. It does not execute tests or claim coverage.
What the Skill does
The strategy starts from user outcomes and risk, then chooses the smallest defensible UI evidence.
Use this Skill to define traceable UI quality candidates and boundaries for a journey or release. It makes platform and state trade-offs explicit without becoming a complete test strategy or executable set.
A good UTS finding names the journey or state, preconditions, risk, source evidence, platform applicability, priority, owner, close condition, and validation action.
Use it when a team needs to decide which UI journeys, states, devices, browsers, locales, or accessibility paths deserve attention first.
What it does not do
The UI Test Strategy Skill can organize material, evidence, and next actions for Journey candidate. It does not replace:
- Confirmation of rules, scope, and risk by the accountable domain owner.
- A real environment, account, dataset, log, or run record; static analysis does not become runtime evidence by itself.
- Authorization for release, compliance, production actions, or residual-risk acceptance.
- A Human decision when supplied sources conflict.
What it checks
The value of this Skill is not another keyword list. It connects each focus area to an observable input, a judgment, and a way to close the loop. Start with a small matrix based on the source Skill’s output contract:
| Focus | Question before analysis | Handoff output |
|---|---|---|
| Journey candidate | User outcome, state, and risk | UTS ID and source |
| Platform boundary | Browser, device, locale, input, and accessibility scope | Applicability |
| Priority rationale | Why this path deserves depth or sampling | Evidence and uncertainty |
| Validation action | Smallest UI check before expanding | Owner and NOT_RUN state |
If a row has only a conventional expectation and no source or validation method, keep it open instead of turning it into a pass.
Audit inputs before you start
Before analyzing Journey candidate, classify the input into six evidence states. A gap is not automatically a failure, but it must not disappear inside the conclusion.
| State | Meaning | How this Skill should handle it |
|---|---|---|
| known | Directly supported by the supplied material | Keep the source, version, and time with the judgment |
| missing | Needed for this pass but not supplied | Name the smallest evidence action and limit the conclusion |
| conflicting | Sources disagree | Show both sources and route the conflict to an owner |
| stale | Present but outside the relevant version or time window | Mark freshness; old evidence is not current proof |
| out_of_scope | Related but excluded from this pass | Keep the boundary explicit |
| assumptions | Temporarily adopted to continue analysis | State how and when the assumption will be checked |
Keep the input version, scope, environment, evidence locations, and accountable owner together. Without a run record, deliver analysis, design, or a validation plan—not an execution pass.
From problem to structured Finding
Connect the source, scope, evidence state, analysis, owner, action, close condition, and validation before writing the conclusion. The case below keeps this Skill’s identifier and domain context.
Keep the decision layers separate
For Journey candidate, do not compress four different kinds of language into “recommended to pass”:
| Layer | How to write it | Application here |
|---|---|---|
| Fact | What the supplied material directly shows | Cite the source, version, input, or run record for the focus |
| Evidence-backed Inference | What several facts support together | Show the inference chain and retain uncertainty |
| Recommendation | The smallest next action | Name the evidence, review, execution, or regression path |
| Human Decision | What an accountable person must decide | Leave scope, risk acceptance, resources, and release meaning to the owner |
A complete case
This case follows Input, Analysis, Finding, Decision, and Validation. When material is incomplete, keep missing, conflicting, or assumptions visible instead of turning them into a pass.
Input
| Material | What to provide | What to do when it is missing |
|---|---|---|
| Journeys and states | Core flows, empty/loading/error/success states, roles, and transitions | Keep missing states visible |
| Platform matrix | Browsers, devices, viewport, locale, input mode, and accessibility needs | Do not assume one browser represents all |
| Risk evidence | Defects, analytics, business criticality, and change surface | Separate facts and inference |
| Existing assets | Designs, components, tests, fixtures, and environment | Do not treat presence as execution |
Use a request like this:
Use the ui-test-strategy Skill.
Task: Define UI test strategy candidates for a travel-booking checkout across desktop, mobile web, keyboard navigation, and payment-error states.
Inputs: [journeys, state map, platform matrix, accessibility requirements, design, defect history]
Scope: [search, passenger details, payment, confirmation]
Constraints: [one staging environment and limited device capacity]
Produce UTS-## findings with subject, preconditions, concern, source, platform applicability, evidence state, owner, close condition, and validation.Analysis
Use the input, matrix, and evidence state to form the judgment before writing the Finding; keep missing material as a gap.
Finding
Focused example: Cover payment errors across keyboard and mobile states
The happy path exists on desktop, but defect history shows payment errors trap keyboard users and mobile users lose entered passenger details. The Skill should elevate error-state and recovery candidates, connect them to platform evidence, and leave unexecuted work NOT_RUN.
The output is a strategy-candidate inventory. It cannot prove UI behavior, accessibility compliance, coverage, or release readiness.
Example finding: turn one problem into a handoff
The field example below shows the recording pattern; it is not an execution result.
If the supplied material cannot prove that Journey candidate meets its contract, write the finding like this. It does not invent the missing rule or turn missing evidence into a failure.
| Field | Example wording |
|---|---|
| Source and scope | Record the requirement, version, environment, and the concrete object for Journey candidate |
| Finding | The condition or result for Journey candidate is not yet traceable to evidence |
| Evidence state | missing / assumptions; use conflicting when sources disagree |
| Impact and priority | Name the affected user, journey, or delivery decision without inflating severity |
| Owner and Human decision | Ask the product, engineering, security, or test owner to confirm the rule and trade-off |
| Action and close condition | Add the smallest missing evidence; close only when source, judgment, and owner can be reviewed |
| Validation | Name one repeatable check, query, or run and retain the raw artifact |
The point is to let the next person walk from the finding back to the source and run an action that can change the decision.
Decision
The accountable owner confirms the decision question and risk trade-off; the Skill does not make that choice.
Validation
Before closing the finding, run the stated validation and retain the raw artifact. Without an execution record, the status remains unverified.
How a Finding enters the next stage
Handoff output
| Output field | Why it exists | Example status |
|---|---|---|
| Journey candidate | User outcome, state, and risk | UTS ID and source |
| Platform boundary | Browser, device, locale, input, and accessibility scope | Applicability |
| Priority rationale | Why this path deserves depth or sampling | Evidence and uncertainty |
| Validation action | Smallest UI check before expanding | Owner and NOT_RUN state |
Every conclusion should point to a source, evidence state, and next action. If evidence is missing, use pending, blocked, unassessed, or NOT_SCORED instead of filling the gap with confidence.
Next-stage route
At minimum, hand off the source, evidence state, owner, close condition, and validation action; the next-stage conclusion remains bounded by the evidence state.
How to prepare better input
Provide journeys, state transitions, platform and locale matrix, accessibility expectations, change and defect evidence, design, existing tests, data, and environment capacity. Unknown platform behavior stays unassessed.
A useful handoff includes input versions, scope, time window, evidence index, assumptions, Human decision boundary, and the smallest validation action.
Working with other Skills
- UI Test Selector Review:makes locators stable after scope is defined.
- UI Test Wait Strategy Review:handles asynchronous UI states.
- Visual Regression Testing:adds baseline and visual-change boundaries.
Common traps
- Starting from page count instead of user journey and risk.
- Testing only the happy path on one desktop browser.
- Calling a list of candidate tests a complete strategy or executed coverage.
Install and invoke
npx skills add https://github.com/naodeng/awesome-qa-skills/tree/main/skills/en/testing-types/ui-test-strategy -gUse the ui-test-strategy Skill.
Include objective, scope, versions, evidence paths, constraints, and decision boundary.
Audit inputs first, preserve evidence states, and finish with owner, close condition, and validation method.FAQ
Does this Skill choose a full browser matrix?
It proposes evidence-backed candidates and trade-offs; platform coverage still depends on risk, capacity, and Human decisions.
Can a page inventory prove UI coverage?
No. It is input material. Coverage requires traceable intent and execution evidence.
The Skill is most useful when attached to one real project artifact and kept with its source evidence. Start narrow, validate the uncertain part, and expand only when evidence supports it.
References
Source Skill and execution contract
The complete execution contract lives in UI Test Strategy prompt. The source directory may also contain evaluation cases and supporting material.
Static plans, file presence, and dry runs keep their evidence state. They do not become runtime proof, an all-passed claim, or release approval.
Reference links
- UI Test Strategy prompt:https://github.com/naodeng/awesome-qa-skills/tree/main/skills/en/testing-types/ui-test-strategy/prompts/ui-test-strategy.md
- UI Test Strategy Skill source:https://github.com/naodeng/awesome-qa-skills/tree/main/skills/en/testing-types/ui-test-strategy
- UI Test Strategy details:https://inaodeng.com/en/qaskills/ui-test-strategy/
- Awesome QA Skills on GitHub:https://github.com/naodeng/awesome-qa-skills