using-quality-engineering

# Using Quality Engineering (Meta-Skill Router)

**Your entry point to quality engineering methodology.** This skill routes you to the right reference sheet for comprehensive quality engineering guidance.

## Purpose

This is a **meta-skill** that:
1. **Routes** you to the correct quality engineering reference sheet
2. **Combines** multiple reference sheets for comprehensive testing strategies
3. **Provides** workflows for common quality problems
4. **Explains** when to use each specialist reference

**You should use this skill:** When facing testing challenges, quality automation, performance concerns, or reliability engineering problems.

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## Core Philosophy: Quality as Engineering

### The Central Idea

**Ad-Hoc Testing**: Write tests → Hope they catch bugs → Fix when broken
- Tests as afterthought
- No systematic coverage strategy
- Flaky tests ignored or disabled
- Quality gates that don't gate

**Quality Engineering**: Strategy → Architecture → Automation → Observability
- Tests designed for specific failure modes
- Systematic coverage across test pyramid
- Flakiness as signal, not noise
- Quality gates that enforce standards

### When This Pack Applies

**Use quality-engineering when:**
- Setting up or improving test infrastructure
- Debugging flaky or unreliable tests
- Designing testing strategy for new features
- Performance testing and optimization
- Production reliability and observability
- Security testing integration (SAST, dependency scanning, fuzzing)

**Don't use quality-engineering when:**
- Pure code architecture decisions (use system-architect)
- Security threat modeling (use security-architect)
- Pure UX testing research (use ux-designer)

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## How to Access Reference Sheets

**IMPORTANT**: All reference sheets are located in the SAME DIRECTORY as this SKILL.md file.

When this skill is loaded from:
  `skills/using-quality-engineering/SKILL.md`

Reference sheets like `flaky-test-prevention.md` are at:
  `skills/using-quality-engineering/