auto-qa

name	auto-qa
description	Use after implementation passes the quality gates, when a change needs an independent pass over the code before it ships, or when the user asks to "QA this", "check the implementation", or "verify it matches the spec". Applies to Standard and Comprehensive scopes with the Task tool available; Lightweight tasks skip.
version	1.3.0
modes	["build","architect","fix"]
skill_type	discipline
compliance_marker	⚡ Running implementation QA (sub-agent)...

Auto-QA

Quick independent verification of implementation against spec via sub-agent delegation. Runs as Gate 8 in the quality gates sequence — positioned after Gate 5 (verification), alongside Gate 6 (browser) and Gate 7 (design). 60 seconds max. Code-only. Advisory — never blocks.

When to Run

Auto-QA runs as Gate 8 in the quality-gates workflow. The gate sequence triggers it — the agent does not decide whether to run it.

Activation conditions (checked by quality-gates workflow):

1. Task tool is available. If not (e.g., Antigravity), there is no self-review fallback — self-review shares the author's blind spots, which is the entire thing auto-QA exists to avoid. So the review is skipped.

   Declare the skip in the cycle manifest. Do not log it — the log is taken.

   qa: skipped-no-subagent    # or: passed | skipped-disabled | skipped-timeout | waived
   

   Two mechanisms then act on that, and neither is your discretion (R29):

   • The spec-gate hook refuses to let the cycle reach complete while qa: is still pending. A completion that says nothing about independent QA is not possible. You will be blocked, and told exactly what to write.
   • The degradation-log hook writes the decisions.md line itself, once, the moment you declare anything but passed.

   Announce it in the conversation too — Sage: auto-QA skipped (no sub-agent dispatch). Quality chain is degraded. — but understand what changed: the announcement is courtesy, the manifest field is the requirement, and the durable record is no longer your job.

   This used to be prose asking you to remember. Phase 4 measured the result: the decisions.md line got written in one run out of three. A rule the model must remember is a rule the model will forget, so it stopped being one.

2. Scope is Standard or Comprehensive. Lightweight tasks skip.

3. Config allows it. Check .sage/config.yaml for auto_qa. If auto_qa: false, skip with one-line note: "Auto-QA disabled. Run the QA command for manual testing." If auto_qa: true or absent (default), proceed.

When the scope is Standard+ and auto-QA cannot run because the Task tool is absent, announce and log per condition #1 — a skipped QA that leaves no trace reads as a QA that passed. (A config-disabled skip shows its one-line note; a Lightweight-scope skip needs no announcement — there is nothing to QA.)

Gate 8 runs AFTER Gates 1-5 pass. Gates catch structural issues; Gate 8 catches semantic issues (spec drift, missing handlers, boundary gaps, integration mismatches).

Time Budget

60 seconds max. If the sub-agent doesn't respond within 60 seconds, skip with: "Auto-QA timed out. Run the QA command manually for full testing."

Gathering Context for the Sub-Agent

Default dispatch: FOLDED. This capability's verdict rides the Gate 1–3 independent reviewer (see quality-gates.workflow.md, Gate 8) — the criteria and context below travel in THAT one dispatch. Spawn a dedicated QA sub-agent only when the folded path is unavailable; a first-session build paying a second loop instance to re-ask the Gate-1 question was the field duplication the fold removes.

Before dispatching (folded or dedicated), gather:

1. Spec path — .sage/work/*/spec.md
2. Plan path — .sage/work/*/plan.md
3. Changed files — from build-loop task tracking. List all files created or modified during implementation.
4. Test files — any files matching *test*, *spec*, *.test.*, *.spec.* in the changed file list or in test directories.

Pass all four to the sub-agent prompt.

Sub-Agent Prompt

You are a QA reviewer. You were NOT involved in writing this code.
Review the implementation with fresh eyes. Be specific. Be brief.

CRITICAL: You are READ-ONLY. Do NOT modify any files. Do NOT use
Edit or Write tools. Do NOT modify specs, plans, or code. Your job
is to REPORT findings, not fix them. The user decides what to do.

INPUTS:
- Spec: {SPEC_PATH}
- Plan: {PLAN_PATH}
- Changed files: {FILE_LIST}
- Test files: {TEST_FILE_LIST}

CHECK THESE 5 THINGS:

1. SPEC-IMPLEMENTATION ALIGNMENT: Read each acceptance criterion in
   the spec. Does corresponding code exist for each? Is anything
   implemented that the spec doesn't mention?

2. TEST-CRITERIA COVERAGE: Do tests verify the spec's acceptance
   criteria? Or do they only test implementation details? Flag any
   acceptance criterion with no test.

3. MISSING ERROR HANDLING: Scan changed files for: API calls without
   catch, form submissions without validation, state mutations
   without guards, async operations without loading/error states.
   Be specific — name the file, the line, the risk.

4. BOUNDARY CONDITIONS: Read the spec's boundaries and limits.
   Is each boundary enforced in code? Flag stated limits with no
   code enforcement.

5. INTEGRATION CONSISTENCY: If multiple modules were changed, do
   their interfaces match? Response shapes, event contracts, shared
   types. Flag mismatches.

6. CODING PRINCIPLES: Do changed files follow universal quality
   principles? Check for: magic numbers, swallowed errors, unclear
   names, functions doing multiple things, unnecessary global state,
   missing input validation. Flag clear violations, not style
   preferences.

CLASSIFY each finding:
- CRITICAL: Will break in production. Must fix.
- MAJOR: Will cause problems. Should fix before shipping.
- MINOR-substantive: Improvement opportunity. Affects readability,
  maintainability, or future behavior. Can fix later.
- MINOR-cosmetic: Style/naming/formatting with equally valid
  alternatives. No behavior change.

FORMAT (strict):
VERDICT: PASS | NEEDS FIXES | FAIL
CRITICAL: [list or "None"]
MAJOR: [list or "None"]
MINOR-substantive: [list or "None"]
MINOR-cosmetic: [list or "None"]

Be concise. Every finding must name a specific file and what's wrong.
No generic observations. No praise. Just findings.

Presentation Format

Clean pass

⚡ Running implementation QA (sub-agent)...
✓ Auto-QA: PASS — no issues found.
Proceeding to completion.

Issues found (no CRITICAL)

⚡ Running implementation QA (sub-agent)...

⚠ Auto-QA found {N} issues:

  MAJOR: {file:line — specific finding}
  MINOR: {file:line — specific finding}

[R] Fix issues — address findings before completing
[P] Proceed — ship as-is, I'll track these
[D] Discuss — let's talk about these findings

Pick R/P/D, or tell me what to change.

Critical findings

⚡ Running implementation QA (sub-agent)...

🔴 Auto-QA found a CRITICAL issue:

  CRITICAL: {file:line — specific finding with impact}

[R] Fix — this will break in production
[D] Discuss — let's look at this
[P] Proceed anyway — I understand the risk

[P] Proceed is ALWAYS available. The user decides, not the gate.

Fix-and-Recheck Flow

When the user picks [R] Fix:

1. The main agent reads the auto-QA findings
2. For each CRITICAL and MAJOR finding, the agent fixes directly (findings include file:line — no root cause investigation needed)
3. After fixes, re-run auto-QA sub-agent (same prompt, fresh context)
4. If still failing after 2 iterations, surface to user: "Auto-QA still finding issues after 2 fix attempts. Remaining: {findings}. [P] Proceed / [F] Route to /fix for deeper investigation"

Max 2 re-checks. This keeps the loop bounded.

Decision Logging

After every auto-QA (any verdict), prepend to .sage/decisions.md:

### YYYY-MM-DD — Auto-QA: implementation
Verdict: {PASS|NEEDS FIXES|FAIL}. {findings summary if any}.
User chose: {R|P|D}. (auto-qa sub-agent)

Enforcement

The producing agent MUST NOT filter findings

Present ALL findings to the user exactly as the sub-agent returned them. Do NOT remove, downgrade, or dismiss findings.

Do NOT skip because gates passed

See the Rationalization table — these are the excuses observed when Gate 8 gets skipped, each with the rule that overrides it.

Rationalization table

Derived from the RED baseline in TESTS.md. Gate 8 runs as part of the sequence when its conditions hold; the marker ⚡ Running implementation QA (sub-agent)... MUST appear — it is not the agent's discretion.

The excuse (observed)	Why it's wrong	The rule
"Quality gates already passed."	Gates 1-5 are self-review; Gate 8 is the independent pass that catches semantic drift the structural gates can't.	Gate 8 runs after the gates pass, not instead of running.
"The implementation is straightforward."	Straightforward code still has integration gaps, missing handlers, and boundary holes.	Simplicity is not a skip condition.
"The tests all pass."	Passing tests don't mean the right things were tested against the spec's criteria.	Green tests do not substitute for independent verification.
"I already checked this during implementation."	Self-check shares the author's blind spots — it is not independent.	Independent context is the point; your own check doesn't count.

Review Loop v2 (ledger mode)

Active by DEFAULT (an absent review_loop: block means mode: v2) (loop: orchestration/quality-locked; ledger: sage/runtime/tools/ review.py). When active, the sub-agent prompt's CLASSIFY + FORMAT block above is replaced by the contract below. With mode: v1 this section is inert.

Output contract (v2 — no verdict)

Include verbatim in the sub-agent prompt:

You do not decide the loop; you report findings. The decision is computed from them.

A critical or major must carry a witness — a failing test you wrote and ran, a concrete repro (input → observed → expected), or an execution trace — or a citation that resolves: a spec clause, constitution rule, or requirement that actually exists. Citations are checked mechanically against the cycle's spec/plan and the constitution; one that resolves nowhere counts as no citation. A finding with neither witness nor resolving citation is recorded as substantive. This is not a penalty; it is the definition of the severities.

An empty finding list is a valid, creditable outcome; you are scored on precision, not volume. Spend your effort on witnesses and resolvable citations, not on quantity.

Findings are ONE fenced ```json block — an array of objects (prose outside it is not parsed):

[{
  "pass": "spec-conformance | state-and-flow | regression-surface",
  "severity": "critical | major | substantive | cosmetic",
  "cited_rule": "spec §4.2 | null",
  "anchor": {"file": "src/cart.py", "region": [12, 30]},
  "claim": "one falsifiable sentence",
  "witness": {"kind": "test | repro | trace | none",
              "ref": "path or matrix cell, else null",
              "status": "red | green | n/a"},
  "exit_criteria": "what specifically would make this finding pass"
}]

This gate's passes

Gate 8 is the semantic pass, so its checks map to: spec-conformance — the trace matrix over the spec's acceptance criteria (criterion → implementation-anchor → test-anchor; every empty cell is a finding with witness.kind: trace, the empty cell being the demonstration); state-and-flow — missing error handling, unguarded mutations, async without loading/error states; regression-surface — interface mismatches between changed modules, blast-radius neighbors without covering tests.

Two-phase (rounds >1) and packet

Phase A verifies each open/not-fixed ledger entry with evidence before Phase B hunts the revision delta. The packet (assembled by the quality-gates workflow, in order): changed files + delta, gate outputs verbatim, test output + coverage for touched files, ontology blast radius (absent → said loudly), spec/plan excerpts, the ledger, mutation report if present. The fix-and-recheck flow above is superseded on the v2 path: CONTINUE/STOP comes from review.py close-round, not from a 2-recheck counter.

Failure Modes

• Task tool not available: No self-review fallback (it shares the author's blind spots). Skip the sub-agent and set qa: skipped-no-subagent in the cycle manifest — see Activation condition #1. The decisions.md line is written for you by the degradation-log hook, and the spec-gate will not let the cycle complete until you have declared something. Silence is not an available option any more; it used to be, and it was taken 2 times in 3.
• Sub-agent times out: Skip with note. Do NOT block workflow.
• Sub-agent returns malformed output: Present raw output to user with note: "QA format was unexpected. Please interpret."
• Config says disabled: Show one-line note, skip.
• Fix-recheck loops > 2: Surface remaining findings to user, offer /fix for deeper investigation.