Manual/Exploratory Testing

中文版： 见技能 manual-testing 。

Prompts: see prompts/manual-testing_EN.md in this directory.

When to Use

• User mentions manual testing, exploratory testing, or session-based testing

• Need to design manual testing approach or exploratory testing charters

• Trigger: e.g. "Design exploratory testing charter" or "Create manual testing plan"

Output Format Options

This skill defaults to Markdown output. For other formats, specify at the end of your request.

How to Use

• Open the relevant file in this directory's prompts/ and copy the content below the dashed line.

• Append your requirements and context (business flow, environment, constraints, acceptance criteria).

• If you need non-Markdown output, append the request sentence from output-formats.md at the end.

Reference Files

• prompts/manual-testing_EN.md — Manual testing prompts

• output-formats.md — Format specifications

Code Examples

• Exploratory Testing Charter Templates (Planned) - Test charters and session record templates

Common Pitfalls

• ❌ Random testing without plan → ✅ Use test charters to guide exploration

• ❌ Not recording test process → ✅ Detailed session recording

• ❌ Ignoring heuristic methods → ✅ Apply testing heuristics

• ❌ Missing time-boxing → ✅ Set clear time limits

Best Practices

1. Exploratory Testing Charter

Test Charter

Goal: Explore login functionality security Scope: Login page and authentication flow Time: 90 minutes Tester: John Doe

Exploration Focus:

• SQL injection vulnerabilities
• XSS attacks
• Brute force protection
• Session management

Test Data:

• Special characters
• SQL statements
• Script code
• Extra-long strings

2. Testing Heuristics (SFDPOT)

• Structure: Test system structure

• Function: Test functionality implementation

• Data: Test data processing

• Platform: Test platform compatibility

• Operations: Test operation flow

• Time: Test time-related aspects

3. Testing Tours

• Business District Tour: Test core business features

• Historical District Tour: Test legacy features

• Entertainment District Tour: Test fun features

• Tourist District Tour: Test help and documentation

• Saboteur Tour: Try to break the system

Troubleshooting

Issue 1: Don't know where to start exploring

Solution: Use test charter template:

Explore: [Feature/Area] Using: [Tools/Methods] To Discover: [Issues/Risks]

Issue 2: Low exploratory testing efficiency

Solution:

• Set time-box (60-90 minutes)

• Use heuristic methods

• Record test notes

• Regular review and summary

Related Skills: functional-testing-en, bug-reporting-en, test-case-writing-en.

Target Audience

• QA engineers and developers executing this testing domain in real projects

• Team leads who need structured, reproducible testing outputs

• AI users who need fast, format-ready deliverables for execution and reporting

Not Recommended For

• Pure production incident response without test scope/context

• Decisions requiring legal/compliance sign-off without expert review

• Requests lacking minimum inputs (scope, environment, expected behavior)

Critical Success Factors

• Provide clear scope, environment, and acceptance criteria before generation

• Validate generated outputs against real system constraints before execution

• Keep artifacts traceable (requirements -> test points -> defects -> decisions)

Output Templates and Parsing Scripts

• Template directory: output-templates/

• template-word.md (Word-friendly structure)

• template-excel.tsv (Excel paste-ready)

• template-xmind.md (XMind-friendly outline)

• template-json.json

• template-csv.csv

• template-markdown.md

• Parser scripts directory: scripts/

• Parse (generic): parse_output_formats.py

• Parse (per-format): parse_word.py , parse_excel.py , parse_xmind.py , parse_json.py , parse_csv.py , parse_markdown.py

• Convert (generic): convert_output_formats.py

• Convert (per-format): convert_to_word.py , convert_to_excel.py , convert_to_xmind.py , convert_to_json.py , convert_to_csv.py , convert_to_markdown.py

• Batch convert: batch_convert_templates.py (outputs into artifacts/ )

Examples:

python3 scripts/parse_json.py output-templates/template-json.json python3 scripts/parse_markdown.py output-templates/template-markdown.md python3 scripts/convert_to_json.py output-templates/template-markdown.md python3 scripts/convert_output_formats.py output-templates/template-json.json --to csv python3 scripts/batch_convert_templates.py --skip-same