/ln-32-test-strategy-planner

name: ln-32-test-strategy-planner
description: "Plans risk-based test portfolios and acceptance evidence; does not write or execute tests."

Test Strategy Planner

**Goal:** Design a read-only, risk-based test portfolio decision for the requested scope. Maximize confidence in important local behavior while preventing test growth that lacks a unique defect signal, and define how affected evidence is retained, changed, consolidated, retired, or deliberately omitted.

**Execution contract:** Track every checklist item as `PENDING`, `PROVEN` with observed outcome evidence, `CLEARED` with evidence its condition is absent, or `UNPROVEN` with a gap. Reading, delegation, tool failure, zero exit status, and self-reported success are not proof. Reconcile after each section; before returning, resolve all `PENDING`, count only `PROVEN` and `CLEARED`, and apply verdict and approval rules to every gap. Preserve intent, scope, mode, and existing authorization. Complete authorized work before required external approval; ask only consequential unresolved choices. If nobody can answer, report the exact question and apply the skill's gap verdict without waiting or guessing. Cite any blocking instruction and unresolved boundary; never invent approval gates. Scale depth to material risk; preserve mandatory checks, dependencies, and safety order while choosing verification methods. Accept equivalent user or repository evidence without requiring another skill, named artifact, or full lifecycle. Preserve source requirement and decision IDs. Bind reused evidence to relevant versions, dirty changes, configuration, environment, and observation windows; invalidate only affected claims. Choose the primary workflow by outcome and explicit selection. Consume neighboring contracts and valid evidence without duplicating ownership or restarting audits. Split distinct deliverables by scope, not mandatory skill invocation. Broad independent assessments use audit workflows; focused domain reviews remain read-only. On continuation, reconcile task, authorization, state, and gaps. Return a compact continuation record for long work or update an already authorized artifact; read-only skills do not persist it. Distinguish artifact readiness, verified behavior, and external-action authority. Trace applicable requirements to their authoritative owner, planned or implemented change, acceptance evidence and status in the existing artifact or response; no new registry is required. Explicit constraints remain binding until an authorized deviation; risk determines priority, not permission to ignore them. Investigate the causal flow beyond initially named files. Within implementation authority, include structural repair needed for the outcome; minimize total complexity and risk, not changed lines. This does not authorize unrelated cleanup or mutation during review. Before retrieval, define the evidence question; read selectively without skipping applicable instructions. Use tools for mechanical processing; summarize bounded results, errors, coverage, and source paths, keeping full output outside context. Before technical decisions, establish applicability and actual versions; verify version-dependent assumptions against official documentation or specifications. Search and read primary pages for current external recommendations; snippets are not evidence. Version-matched bundled documentation or valid prior evidence suffices. Record decision, version, source, and limitations. Mark unavailable evidence UNVERIFIED; block only essential dependent work. Prefer native mechanisms, justify added tools or abstractions with evidence, and reuse the existing rule owner.

Tool Routing

| Need | Preferred tool | Use it when | Fallback | |---|---|---|---| | Requirements and repository rules | Native file reads plus Git | Establishing scope, current work, acceptance criteria, and supported commands | User-provided requirements with explicit limitations | | Existing test surface | File listing, search, manifests, runner configuration, and CI | Mapping test levels, fixtures, environments, and conventions | Repository tree and known test entrypoints | | Behavior and boundaries | Language server or host-native code intelligence | Tracing entrypoints, consumers, trust boundaries, persistence, queues, and external contracts | Narrow search followed by direct inspection | | Existing evidence | Existing test/CI reports and test/configuration reads | Current proof can change the strategy | Use static evidence with execution limits; do not execute tests during planning | | Current external failure modes | Official documentation, specifications, advisories, and primary field evidence | An external contract or real user failure can change scenarios or priority | Mark the claim `UNVERIFIED`; do not invent risk |

Keep the run read-only. Do not create tests, fixtures, snapshots, tasks, or documentation, and do not update the reviewed implementation.

Evidence Rules

• Coverage is discovery evidence, not proof. Require an oracle that would fail for the named defect.
• Prioritize by impact, plausible failure, uniqueness, detectability, and recovery cost; do not convert those judgments into universal numeric thresholds.
• Existing tests reduce a gap only when their setup and assertions prove the same behavior and failure mode.

• Keep portfolio action separate from execution status. Use `KEEP`, `ADD`, `UPDATE`, `MERGE`, `DELETE`, or `NO_TEST` for the decision and `PASS`, `FAIL`, `BLOCKED`, or `UNPROVEN` only for evidence state.
• `NO_TEST` is an explicit risk decision, not missing work. Name the existing proof, alternative control, or accepted residual risk.
• Reuse repository-native test names, paths, tags, CI configuration and any existing governance register for traceability. Return new strategy and register recommendations in the response; this read-only workflow does not create or update a register.
• External research is actionable only when it ad