Test Planning Orchestrator

Coordinates the complete test planning pipeline for a Story by delegating to specialized workers.

Purpose & Scope

• Orchestrate test planning: research → manual testing → automated test planning

• Delegate to workers: ln-511-test-researcher, ln-512-manual-tester, ln-513-auto-test-planner

• No direct work — only coordination and delegation via Skill tool

• Called by ln-500-story-quality-gate after regression tests pass

When to Use

This skill should be used when:

• Invoked by ln-500-story-quality-gate Pass 1 after regression tests pass

• All implementation tasks in Story are Done

• Need complete test planning (research + manual + auto)

Prerequisites:

• All implementation Tasks in Story status = Done

• Regression tests passed (ln-502)

• Code quality checked (ln-501)

Pipeline Overview

ln-510-test-planner (Orchestrator) │ ├─→ ln-511-test-researcher │ └─→ Posts "## Test Research: {Feature}" comment │ ├─→ ln-512-manual-tester │ └─→ Creates tests/manual/ scripts + "## Manual Testing Results" comment │ └─→ ln-513-auto-test-planner └─→ Creates test task in Linear via ln-301/ln-302

Workflow

Phase 1: Discovery

• Auto-discover Team ID from docs/tasks/kanban_board.md

• Validate Story ID provided by ln-500

Input: Story ID from ln-500-story-quality-gate

Phase 2: Research Delegation

Check if research exists:

• Search Linear comments for "## Test Research:" header

• If found → skip to Phase 3

If no research:

• Use Skill tool to invoke ln-511-test-researcher

• Pass: Story ID

• Wait for completion

• Verify research comment created

Phase 3: Manual Testing Delegation

Check if manual testing done:

• Search Linear comments for "## Manual Testing Results" header

• If found with all AC passed → skip to Phase 4

If manual testing needed:

• Use Skill tool to invoke ln-512-manual-tester

• Pass: Story ID

• Wait for completion

• Verify results comment created

If any AC failed:

• Stop pipeline

• Report to ln-500: "Manual testing failed, Story needs fixes"

Phase 4: Auto Test Planning Delegation

Invoke auto test planner:

• Use Skill tool to invoke ln-513-auto-test-planner

• Pass: Story ID

• Wait for completion

Verify results:

• Test task created in Linear (or updated if existed)

• Return task URL to ln-500

Phase 5: Report to Caller

• Return summary to ln-500:

• Research: completed / skipped (existed)

• Manual testing: passed / failed

• Test task: created / updated + URL

Worker Invocation (MANDATORY)

CRITICAL: All delegations use Task tool with subagent_type: "general-purpose" for context isolation.

Phase Worker Purpose

2 ln-511-test-researcher Research real-world problems

3 ln-512-manual-tester Manual AC testing via bash scripts

4 ln-513-auto-test-planner Plan E2E/Integration/Unit tests

Prompt template:

Task(description: "[Phase N] test planning via ln-51X", prompt: "Execute ln-51X-{worker}. Read skill from ln-51X-{worker}/SKILL.md. Story: {storyId}", subagent_type: "general-purpose")

Anti-Patterns:

• ❌ Direct Skill tool invocation without Task wrapper

• ❌ Running web searches directly (delegate to ln-511)

• ❌ Creating bash test scripts directly (delegate to ln-512)

• ❌ Creating test tasks directly (delegate to ln-513)

• ❌ Skipping any phase without justification

Critical Rules

• No direct work: Orchestrator only delegates, never executes tasks itself

• Sequential execution: 511 → 512 → 513 (each depends on previous)

• Fail-fast: If manual testing fails, stop pipeline and report

• Skip detection: Check for existing comments before invoking workers

• Single responsibility: Each worker does one thing well

Definition of Done

• Story ID validated

• Research phase: ln-511 invoked OR existing comment found

• Manual testing phase: ln-512 invoked OR existing results found

• Auto test planning phase: ln-513 invoked

• Test task created/updated in Linear

• Summary returned to ln-500-story-quality-gate

Output: Summary with phase results + test task URL

Reference Files

• Workers: ../ln-511-test-researcher/SKILL.md , ../ln-512-manual-tester/SKILL.md , ../ln-513-auto-test-planner/SKILL.md

• Caller: ../ln-500-story-quality-gate/SKILL.md

• Risk-based testing: ../ln-513-auto-test-planner/references/risk_based_testing_guide.md

Version: 4.0.0 (Refactored to Orchestrator pattern - delegates to ln-511/512/513 workers) Last Updated: 2026-01-15