# QA Acceptance Plan

Writes acceptance criteria and a manual test plan with pass and fail evidence.

- Repository: https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip (109885 stars)
- Category: Testing
- License: MIT
- Last updated: 2026-11-01
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add paperclipai/paperclip --skill qa-acceptance -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add paperclipai/paperclip --skill qa-acceptance -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add paperclipai/paperclip --skill qa-acceptance -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add paperclipai/paperclip --skill qa-acceptance -g -a gemini-cli -y`

## Description

Produce QA acceptance criteria and a manual validation plan for a feature change, golden path, edge cases, error states, performance limits, and explicit pass/fail evidence.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# QA Acceptance

Write acceptance criteria that a reviewer can run against the running app and decide pass or fail without asking the author. The criteria are the contract, automated tests cover correctness, QA covers feature-level behavior.

## When to use

- A feature change is heading to QA and needs a written validation plan.
- A reviewer is asked to verify a PR that touches user-visible behavior.
- An incident postmortem requires a regression check before reopen-prevention.
- A release candidate needs a pre-cut smoke pass.

## When not to use

- The change is unit-test-only (utility refactor, internal naming). Acceptance criteria are unnecessary churn.
- You are asked to write tests against API contracts. Use contract testing, not feature QA.

## Acceptance criteria format

Each criterion is a single, independently-verifiable statement:

```md
- **Given** <starting state>, **when** <action>, **then** <observable outcome>.
```

Example:

```md
- **Given** a CSV export with 0 rows, **when** the user clicks Export, **then** the file downloads with only the header row and the UI shows "Exported 0 rows".
```

Avoid criteria that combine multiple `when`s or `then`s. Split them.

## What every plan must cover

The rest: https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/blob/HEAD/packages/skills-catalog/catalog/bundled/quality/qa-acceptance/SKILL.md