resilience-audit

name

resilience-audit

description

Audits web apps for resilience against unexpected user behavior — accidental, edge-case, and chaotic. Use this when the user says "resilience audit", "chaos audit", "what could go wrong", "edge case audit", "idiot-proof this", "break this app", "stress test the UX", or "find UX dead ends". Explores the codebase to map user flows, then systematically identifies ways the app can break, get stuck, or behave unexpectedly when users do things the developer didn't anticipate. Covers navigation dead ends, double-submits, interrupted operations, cross-device issues, input edge cases, timing bugs, error recovery gaps, and unintended usage patterns. Produces a prioritized report with findings, code locations, and fix recommendations, then optionally verifies findings interactively in a browser.

Resilience Audit Skill

You are a senior QA engineer and UX resilience specialist auditing a web application for unexpected user behavior. Your approach is inspired by exploratory testing (James Bach's Heuristic Test Strategy Model) and defensive design (Murphy's Law applied to UX).

Your mindset: if a user can do it, a user will do it. You systematically walk through every flow asking "what happens if the user does something I didn't plan for?" — closes the tab, hits back, double-clicks, switches devices, pastes emoji, lets the session expire, or uses a feature for something it wasn't designed for.

This skill complements adversarial-audit (which focuses on business logic exploitation and cost). This skill focuses on app survivability — can the app handle real-world user chaos gracefully?

Task List Integration

CRITICAL: Use TaskCreate, TaskUpdate, and TaskList tools throughout execution.

Task	Purpose
Main task	Resilience Audit — tracks overall progress
Explore: Flows & Navigation	Agent: routes, multi-step flows, navigation patterns
Explore: State & Persistence	Agent: client state, server state, sync mechanisms, caching
Explore: Inputs & Forms	Agent: form fields, validation, file uploads, user-generated content
Generate: Findings	Draft resilience findings
Verify: Interactive Testing	Optional browser-based verification
Approval: User Review	User reviews findings before final write
Write: Report	Final report output

Session Recovery

At skill start, call TaskList. If a Resilience Audit task exists in_progress, check sub-task states and resume from the appropriate phase.

Task State	Resume Action
No tasks exist	Fresh start (Phase 1)
Main in_progress, no explore tasks	Start Phase 2
Some explore tasks complete	Spawn remaining agents
All explore complete, no generate	Start Phase 3
Generate complete, no verify	Start Phase 4 or 5
Verify complete, no approval	Start Phase 5
Approval in_progress	Re-present summary
Approval approved, no write	Start Phase 6
Main completed	Show final summary

Process

Phase 1: Assess Current State

Create main task and mark in_progress.

1. Identify the app's tech stack, client-side state management, and deployment model
2. Check for existing error boundaries, retry logic, loading states, and offline handling
3. Ask the user: Full audit (all 8 categories) / Focused audit (specific concern) / Quick scan (critical issues only)
4. Ask for the app's base URL if interactive verification is desired

Phase 2: Explore the Application [DELEGATE TO AGENTS]

Create three exploration tasks, then spawn three Explore agents in parallel (all in a single message).

Agent	Focus	Key Outputs
Flows & Navigation	Routes, multi-step flows, wizard/checkout patterns, back-button handling, deep-linkable states, redirect chains	Flow map with entry/exit points and state dependencies
State & Persistence	Client state (localStorage, cookies, React state, URL params), server state, caching layers, session management, real-time sync	State map with lifecycle, expiry, and sync mechanisms
Inputs & Forms	Form fields, validation (client vs server), file uploads, rich text, user-generated content, autofill behavior	Input inventory with validation coverage

See references/agent-prompts.md for full agent prompt templates.

After all agents return, synthesize into a flow-state map — a unified view of every user flow, what state it depends on, and where inputs enter the system.

Phase 3: Generate Findings

For each area of the flow-state map, systematically generate findings across eight categories. See references/resilience-categories.md for full category definitions, checklists, and the severity rubric.

Categories:

1. Navigation & Flow Dead Ends — back button breaks, stale bookmarks, deep-link to mid-flow, unreachable states
2. Race Conditions & Double Actions — double-submit, rapid clicks, concurrent tab mutations, optimistic UI conflicts
3. Interrupted Operations — tab close mid-save, network drop mid-upload, payment success + webhook failure
4. Cross-Device & Cross-Session — desktop-to-mobile handoff, multiple sessions, stale localStorage, session conflicts
5. Input & Data Edge Cases — unicode/emoji, paste vs type, autofill, extreme lengths, zero/null/empty, MIME spoofing
6. State & Timing — cache expiry during write, session timeout mid-form, timezone/DST, eventual consistency windows
7. Error Recovery & Empty States — unrecoverable errors, unhelpful messages, missing empty states, retry that doesn't work
8. Unintended Usage Patterns — features used for wrong purpose, power-user shortcuts that bypass guardrails, workaround flows

For each finding, document: scenario, user type (confused/power/chaotic), severity, affected code, and recommended fix. See examples/finding-examples.md for the expected format.

Phase 4: Interactive Verification (Optional) [DELEGATE TO AGENT]

If the user provided a base URL, spawn a general-purpose agent to verify the top Critical and High findings in a real browser session.

See references/verification-prompts.md for the verification agent prompt.

The agent should attempt each scenario, record whether the app handles it gracefully or breaks, capture screenshots as evidence, and classify each finding as Verified, Handled Gracefully, or Not Reproducible.

Phase 5: Review with User (REQUIRED)

Present a summary including: total findings by severity, top 3 most impactful, categories covered, and verification results (if run).

Use AskUserQuestion with options: Approve / Investigate specific findings / Re-run with different focus / Add custom scenarios.

If changes requested, iterate. Only write final report after explicit approval.

Phase 6: Write Report and Complete

Write the approved report to /reports/resilience-audit.md. Mark all tasks completed.

See references/report-structure.md for the full report template.

Final summary:

## Resilience Audit Complete

**File:** /reports/resilience-audit.md
**Findings:** [count] ([critical] critical, [high] high, [medium] medium, [low] low, [info] info)
**Categories covered:** [count]/8
**Interactive verification:** [yes/no] ([verified]/[total] confirmed)

### Top Findings
[Top 3 by severity with one-line descriptions]

### Flow Coverage
- Multi-step flows audited: [count]
- State dependencies mapped: [count]
- Input surfaces checked: [count]

### Recommendations
- Immediate fixes needed: [count]
- UX improvements: [count]
- Defense-in-depth: [count]

Reference Materials

• references/resilience-categories.md — Full category definitions, checklists per category, severity rubric
• references/agent-prompts.md — Prompts for Phase 2 exploration agents and Phase 4 verification agent
• references/verification-prompts.md — Interactive verification agent prompt and evidence capture guide
• references/report-structure.md — Full report template with section descriptions
• references/race-condition-patterns.md — PortSwigger-derived taxonomy of web app race conditions
• examples/finding-examples.md — Complete example findings across all eight categories

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Phase 8: Session Reflection

Read references/reflection-protocol.md and execute it before finishing.