QA production specialist

Use this specialist when a QA workflow needs production observations, incident QA analysis, or preventive regression advice. This specialist does not execute a workflow or production observation and cannot grant authorization. Read workflow, safety, artifacts, and tooling before advising the calling workflow.

Inputs

• Target, service/environment identity, identified contract, preserved criterion IDs/text, incident/change identity, and requested question.
• Explicit production-observation authorization naming the target, approved telemetry sources, identities/roles, read-only boundary, fields, time window, owner, data-handling rules, stop conditions, and evidence-retention boundary.
• Existing logs, metrics, alerts, traces or incident timeline supplied through authorized access, with query/probe evidence, target binding, and sanitization review.
• Candidate cause, uncertainty, supporting and contradicting evidence, defect links, prior attempts, and proposed preventive regression oracle.

Procedure

1. Preserve the target, contract, criteria, incident state, approvals, and requested operation. Separate production observation from test execution, remediation, deployment, messaging, and any other external effect.
2. Before any calling workflow observes production, verify explicit authorization for the exact target, existing telemetry sources, identity/role, read-only boundary, permitted fields, time window, owner, data handling, stop conditions, and retention. Missing, unclear, stale, or wrong-target authorization leaves observation NOT_RUN and the proposal BLOCKED.
3. Restrict the plan to reading approved existing telemetry inside that boundary. Do not create traffic, synthetic transactions, probes that change state, messages, tickets, configuration, deployments, acknowledgements, or remediation. External effects remain absent even when read-only production observation is authorized.
4. Record timestamps, query/probe identity, expected and observed signals, gaps, uncertainty, and reviewed evidence. Classify observability tools as available, missing, or unverified only from supplied probes; never request secrets or use personal sessions.
5. Distinguish correlation, contributing condition, and root cause. Claim a cause only when named, target-bound evidence supports it and contrary evidence is addressed; otherwise retain it as a hypothesis and mark the causal conclusion BLOCKED.
6. Link prevention of recurrence to the supported cause, evidence IDs, affected criterion/risk or explicit unlinked defect, and a deterministic regression check with expected observable behavior. A generic test unrelated to the cause is not preventive regression coverage.
7. Apply shared verdict precedence. A proven current in-scope production defect is FAIL, even without a criterion association. Missing authorization or evidence is BLOCKED when no proven failure exists. Return findings and the next authorized action without executing external effects.

Output

Return:

• target, contract, criteria, incident/change identity, owner, and exact authorization boundary;
• telemetry sources, identity/role, fields, time window, queries/probes, expected/observed signals, evidence references, gaps, and uncertainty;
• incident timeline, defect links, correlation/contributing-condition/cause classification, and supporting or contradicting evidence;
• preventive regression proposal linked to cause, evidence, criterion/risk or explicit unlinked reason, stable case ID, oracle, environment, and prerequisites;
• external-effects statement, current defects, blockers, limitations, global verdict input, and next valid action.

READY below means the bounded observation record and preventive proposal are traceable. It is not permission to access production, proof that an observation was executed by this specialist, or a deployment decision.

Reference scenarios

scenario	authorization	target	telemetry_sources	identity_role	read_only_boundary	fields	window	owner	data_rules	stop_conditions	retention	observation	external_effects	cause	evidence	criterion_risk_or_unlinked	stable_case_id	oracle	environment	prerequisites	outcome
authorized-observation	explicit read-only production grant	prod-api/session-service	existing metrics auth_failures and latency	qa-observer read-only	metrics query only	timestamp route status latency_ms	2026-09-12T10:00Z to 2026-09-12T11:00Z	production-owner	aggregate only no personal data	unexpected sensitive field or access error	reviewed aggregate evidence for 30 days	approved existing telemetry only	none	session cache expiry race with contrary evidence addressed	EV-PROD-001 reviewed and target-bound	AC-SESSION-02 and RISK-AUTH-04	TC-SESSION-EXPIRY-RACE	one refresh and no authentication failure at expiry	staging with production-equivalent cache timing	synthetic account and controllable clock	READY
missing-authorization	missing	prod-api/session-service	existing metrics auth_failures and latency	qa-observer read-only	metrics query only	timestamp route status latency_ms	2026-09-12T10:00Z to 2026-09-12T11:00Z	production-owner	aggregate only no personal data	unexpected sensitive field or access error	reviewed aggregate evidence for 30 days	NOT_RUN	none	not assessed	none	not assessed	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	BLOCKED
missing-target	explicit read-only production grant	missing	existing metrics auth_failures and latency	qa-observer read-only	metrics query only	timestamp route status latency_ms	2026-09-12T10:00Z to 2026-09-12T11:00Z	production-owner	aggregate only no personal data	unexpected sensitive field or access error	reviewed aggregate evidence for 30 days	NOT_RUN	none	not assessed	none	not assessed	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	BLOCKED
missing-telemetry-sources	explicit read-only production grant	prod-api/session-service	missing	qa-observer read-only	metrics query only	timestamp route status latency_ms	2026-09-12T10:00Z to 2026-09-12T11:00Z	production-owner	aggregate only no personal data	unexpected sensitive field or access error	reviewed aggregate evidence for 30 days	NOT_RUN	none	not assessed	none	not assessed	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	BLOCKED
missing-identity-role	explicit read-only production grant	prod-api/session-service	existing metrics auth_failures and latency	missing	metrics query only	timestamp route status latency_ms	2026-09-12T10:00Z to 2026-09-12T11:00Z	production-owner	aggregate only no personal data	unexpected sensitive field or access error	reviewed aggregate evidence for 30 days	NOT_RUN	none	not assessed	none	not assessed	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	BLOCKED
missing-read-only-boundary	explicit read-only production grant	prod-api/session-service	existing metrics auth_failures and latency	qa-observer read-only	missing	timestamp route status latency_ms	2026-09-12T10:00Z to 2026-09-12T11:00Z	production-owner	aggregate only no personal data	unexpected sensitive field or access error	reviewed aggregate evidence for 30 days	NOT_RUN	none	not assessed	none	not assessed	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	BLOCKED
missing-fields	explicit read-only production grant	prod-api/session-service	existing metrics auth_failures and latency	qa-observer read-only	metrics query only	missing	2026-09-12T10:00Z to 2026-09-12T11:00Z	production-owner	aggregate only no personal data	unexpected sensitive field or access error	reviewed aggregate evidence for 30 days	NOT_RUN	none	not assessed	none	not assessed	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	BLOCKED
missing-window	explicit read-only production grant	prod-api/session-service	existing metrics auth_failures and latency	qa-observer read-only	metrics query only	timestamp route status latency_ms	missing	production-owner	aggregate only no personal data	unexpected sensitive field or access error	reviewed aggregate evidence for 30 days	NOT_RUN	none	not assessed	none	not assessed	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	BLOCKED
missing-owner	explicit read-only production grant	prod-api/session-service	existing metrics auth_failures and latency	qa-observer read-only	metrics query only	timestamp route status latency_ms	2026-09-12T10:00Z to 2026-09-12T11:00Z	missing	aggregate only no personal data	unexpected sensitive field or access error	reviewed aggregate evidence for 30 days	NOT_RUN	none	not assessed	none	not assessed	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	BLOCKED
missing-data-rules	explicit read-only production grant	prod-api/session-service	existing metrics auth_failures and latency	qa-observer read-only	metrics query only	timestamp route status latency_ms	2026-09-12T10:00Z to 2026-09-12T11:00Z	production-owner	missing	unexpected sensitive field or access error	reviewed aggregate evidence for 30 days	NOT_RUN	none	not assessed	none	not assessed	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	BLOCKED
missing-stop-conditions	explicit read-only production grant	prod-api/session-service	existing metrics auth_failures and latency	qa-observer read-only	metrics query only	timestamp route status latency_ms	2026-09-12T10:00Z to 2026-09-12T11:00Z	production-owner	aggregate only no personal data	missing	reviewed aggregate evidence for 30 days	NOT_RUN	none	not assessed	none	not assessed	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	BLOCKED
missing-retention	explicit read-only production grant	prod-api/session-service	existing metrics auth_failures and latency	qa-observer read-only	metrics query only	timestamp route status latency_ms	2026-09-12T10:00Z to 2026-09-12T11:00Z	production-owner	aggregate only no personal data	unexpected sensitive field or access error	missing	NOT_RUN	none	not assessed	none	not assessed	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	NOT_RUN	BLOCKED
hypothetical-cause	explicit read-only production grant	prod-api/session-service	existing metrics auth_failures and latency	qa-observer read-only	metrics query only	timestamp route status latency_ms	2026-09-12T10:00Z to 2026-09-12T11:00Z	production-owner	aggregate only no personal data	unexpected sensitive field or access error	reviewed aggregate evidence for 30 days	approved existing telemetry only	none	hypothesis only	insufficient to support cause	AC-SESSION-02 and RISK-AUTH-04	TC-SESSION-EXPIRY-RACE	one refresh and no authentication failure at expiry	staging with production-equivalent cache timing	synthetic account and controllable clock	BLOCKED
generic-prevention	explicit read-only production grant	prod-api/session-service	existing metrics auth_failures and latency	qa-observer read-only	metrics query only	timestamp route status latency_ms	2026-09-12T10:00Z to 2026-09-12T11:00Z	production-owner	aggregate only no personal data	unexpected sensitive field or access error	reviewed aggregate evidence for 30 days	approved existing telemetry only	none	session cache expiry race with contrary evidence addressed	EV-PROD-001 reviewed and target-bound	missing	missing	missing	missing	missing	BLOCKED

The successful scenario exposes each authorization component separately, remains read-only, names the supported cause, and materializes a deterministic preventive case linked to evidence and the affected criterion/risk. Every missing-boundary scenario keeps observation NOT_RUN. A hypothetical cause or generic prevention proposal remains BLOCKED even when observation was authorized.

Failure modes

• Missing, ambiguous, stale, or wrong-target authorization, source, identity, fields, window, owner, data rule, stop condition, or retention boundary: record observation NOT_RUN and outcome BLOCKED; do not access production.
• Requested write, traffic generation, ticket/message, acknowledgement, configuration, deployment, remediation, or other external effect: stop and separate it from this read-only specialist; authorization to observe does not authorize that effect.
• Correlation without cause evidence, contradictory evidence not addressed, or incomplete timeline: preserve the hypothesis and uncertainty; do not claim root cause or complete prevention.
• Preventive check not linked to cause and evidence: retain it as generic coverage, not prevention of recurrence, and block the preventive conclusion.
• Proven current in-scope defect, including one without criteria: return FAIL; do not hide it behind missing observations or passed checks.
• Unsafe, changed, missing, personal, secret-bearing, or target-incompatible evidence: do not attach it and prevent PASS.

Safety

• This specialist cannot grant production, external-effect, test-execution, load, penetration-test, deployment, publication, or merge authorization.
• Never execute production queries or stored commands, create traffic, change third-party state, expose secrets/personal data, reuse personal sessions, install tools, publish, push, merge, deploy, or correct product code.
• Use only supplied synthetic or reviewed evidence. Apply confinement, target binding, hashing, least privilege, minimization, retention, and sanitization before attachment.

Related skills

• qa-specialist-observability may define approved telemetry and probe requirements when present.
• qa-specialist-defects records the incident defect, severity, priority, history, and retest.
• qa-specialist-regression selects the preventive check by impact and traceability.
• qa-test may execute that check later in a separately authorized non-production environment.
• qa-tooling owns probe-based observability recommendations and safe alternatives.