Phase 4 - Execution

Execution is fully deterministic. /qa-exec reads qa-plan.md to determine which domains are active, then delegates each to its purpose-built CLI in a fixed order. The AI orchestrates and interprets results - it does not generate or modify tests at runtime.

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Skill in this phase

Skill	Purpose
/qa-exec	Runs all in-scope domain tests in the correct order

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Execution order

API  →  UI + Accessibility  →  Performance

This order is intentional and not configurable:

Step	Why
API first	Validates the backend is stable before browser tests depend on it
UI + A11y together	Both run in a single browser session - the UI interaction script and the axe-core audit share the same page navigation
Performance last	Load tests stress the system; run only after functional tests confirm it is working

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Per-domain execution

API

Submits the test plan to the democratize-quality MCP server:

mcp > democratize-quality > run_tests(plan: "qa-reports/api/api-test-plan.json")

Output: qa-reports/api/api-report.html and api-report.json

UI + Accessibility

Runs the interaction YAML through accessibility-cli:

a11y-cli run qa-reports/ui/ui-test.yaml --output qa-reports/ui/
a11y-cli run qa-reports/a11y/ui-test.yaml --output qa-reports/a11y/

Output: HTML report, screenshots, optional video recording

Performance

Executes the NBomber load test scenario:

dq-nbomber run --config load-tests/dq-nbomber.yaml --output qa-reports/perf/

Output: qa-reports/perf/perf-report.html and perf-report.json

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Prerequisites

Before running /qa-exec, confirm:

• qa-plan.md exists with at least one domain in scope
• All in-scope design artefacts exist in qa-reports/
• The application under test is running and reachable at the URL in dq-qa.config.json
• CLI tools are installed (a11y-cli, dq-nbomber, democratize-quality MCP)

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After execution

Once all domains have run:

• No failures - proceed directly to Phase 5 - Closure and run /qa-report
• Failures found - proceed to Phase 5 and run /qa-triage before /qa-report

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Phase gate

Phase 4 is complete when:

• [x] All in-scope domains have completed execution
• [x] Report files exist in each domain's qa-reports/ subdirectory
• [x] Exit codes and summary results have been reviewed

Once execution is complete, proceed to Phase 5 - Closure.