Phase 1 - Setup

Before any testing can begin, two things must be in place: the external CLI tools installed on the developer machine, and a project config that tells every subsequent skill where your app lives and which domains are in scope.

Phase 1 is run once per machine and once per project - it is not repeated every cycle.

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Skills in this phase

Skill	Run	Purpose
/qa-setup	Once per developer machine	Installs a11y-cli and dq-nbomber CLI
/qa-onboard	Once per project	Creates dq-qa.config.json for the project

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Step 1 - Install the tools (/qa-setup)

Run /qa-setup on every developer machine that will execute tests. It checks what is already installed before doing anything, so it is safe to re-run.

Tools installed:

Tool	Purpose
a11y-cli	WCAG accessibility audits and Playwright browser automation
dq-nbomber	Load test generation and execution (.NET required)

The democratize-quality MCP server is bundled in the plugin and activates automatically - no manual install needed.

Verify the installation:

a11y-cli --version
dq-nbomber --version

Then confirm the democratize-quality MCP server is available using your coding agent's plugin/MCP diagnostics.

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Step 2 - Configure the project (/qa-onboard)

Run /qa-onboard once in the project root. It asks a short set of questions (~5 minutes) and writes dq-qa.config.json.

Questions asked:

Section	What it captures
Project	Project name
UI	Base URL, video recording preference
API	API base URL, OpenAPI/Swagger or GraphQL schema URL
Accessibility	WCAG version and conformance level (A, AA, AAA)
Performance	p95 threshold, error rate limit, test duration

Output - dq-qa.config.json:

{
  "project": { "name": "my-app" },
  "domains": {
    "ui":            { "enabled": true, "baseUrl": "https://app.example.com" },
    "api":           { "enabled": true, "baseUrl": "https://api.example.com", "schemaUrl": "..." },
    "accessibility": { "enabled": true, "jurisdiction": "NZ", "level": "AA" },
    "performance":   { "enabled": true, "thresholds": { "p95Ms": 500, "errorRatePct": 1 } }
  }
}

If dq-qa.config.json already exists, /qa-onboard detects it and asks which sections to update rather than starting from scratch.

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Phase gate

Phase 1 is complete when:

• [x] a11y-cli --version returns a version number
• [x] dq-nbomber --version returns a version number
• [x] democratize-quality MCP server is visible in your coding agent diagnostics
• [x] dq-qa.config.json exists in the project root

Once these are in place, proceed to Phase 2 - Planning.