Skill: quality-gates

Skill: quality-gates

Purpose

Define formal quality gates between delivery phases — so teams don't proceed to the next phase until the current one meets agreed standards.

When to Use

• Setting up a new delivery process
• When bugs keep escaping to production
• When UAT or release keeps failing due to upstream quality issues

Framework: Quality Gates

Standard Delivery Gates

Gate 1: Dev → QA (Code Ready) Criteria to pass:

• All unit tests passing (>80% coverage)
• Code reviewed and merged
• No known P0 bugs
• Feature available in staging environment
• Developer has tested their own code

Gate 2: QA → UAT (QA Complete) Criteria to pass:

• All acceptance criteria tested
• No open P0 or P1 bugs
• Regression suite > 95% pass rate
• Performance within SLA (if applicable)
• QA Lead sign-off

Gate 3: UAT → Release Candidate (Business Approval) Criteria to pass:

• All UAT scenarios passed
• Business Owner sign-off received
• Legal/compliance approval (if required)
• No new P0/P1 bugs since QA sign-off

Gate 4: Release Candidate → Production (Go-Live) Criteria to pass:

• All prior gates passed
• Rollback plan tested
• Monitoring and alerts configured
• On-call rotation confirmed
• Deployment window confirmed with stakeholders

Gate Failure Protocol

If a gate is not passed:

1. Document which criteria failed
2. Return to previous phase for remediation
3. Re-test only failed criteria (not full regression unless P0 fix)
4. Gate re-evaluation within 24 hours

Output Format

1. Four-gate quality framework with criteria
2. Gate failure protocol
3. Gate status tracker template
4. Suggested next command: /launch-checklist or /assess-readiness