product-risk-register-builder
Build-an-X workflow that produces a product-level risk register catalogue - per-feature / per-component product risks (functionality, performance, security, usability, compatibility, reliability) that persist across releases, distinct from per-release risk matrices. Walks the author through risk identification by ISO 25010 quality characteristic, scoring per impact × likelihood, and linking each register entry to mitigations + owners + review cadence. Output is a Markdown register the team reviews quarterly and that seeds release-level risk matrices. Use for long-lived product-quality risks; complements risk-matrix for per-release risks.
Install with skills.sh (any agent)
npx skills add testland/qa --skill product-risk-register-builderproduct-risk-register-builder
Overview
The product risk register catalogs long-lived product-quality risks - risks tied to the product's architecture, domain, and user base that persist across releases. Distinct from the per-release risk matrix (risk-matrix) which captures release-scoped risks. Both feed risk-based test selection and planning.
Per ISTQB CTAL-TM syllabus chapter 5 on risk-based testing and ISO 31000:2018 (risk management) - cite by stable ID; ISO behind paywall.
When to use
Step 1 - Identify risks by quality characteristic
Walk through ISO 25010 quality characteristics. For each, ask: "What could go wrong here in this product?"
| Characteristic | Example product risks |
|---|---|
| Functional suitability | Core business logic incorrectness (pricing, tax, compliance calculations) |
| Performance efficiency | Sustained load failure; large-dataset slowness; cold-start latency |
| Compatibility | Browser / OS / device fragmentation; third-party API drift |
| Usability | Accessibility (WCAG conformance); learnability for new users; error messaging |
| Reliability | Recovery from upstream failures; data durability; transactional integrity |
| Security | Auth / authz; PII exposure; injection vulnerabilities; supply chain |
| Maintainability | Tech debt accumulating in critical paths; test brittleness |
| Portability | Migration between cloud providers; export/import data integrity |
Per ISO/IEC 25010:2023 quality model (cite by stable ID).
Aim for 15-30 product-level risks. Fewer than 10 = too sparse; more than 50 = mix with per-release risks.
Step 2 - Score per impact × likelihood
Use the same 1-5 scale as risk-matrix. Score is impact × likelihood:
| Score | Tier | Action |
|---|---|---|
| 15-25 | Critical | Continuous monitoring + multiple mitigations + quarterly review |
| 10-14 | High | At least one strong mitigation + annual review |
| 5-9 | Medium | Documented mitigation strategy + biannual review |
| 1-4 | Low | Acknowledged; mitigation optional |
Step 3 - Document the register
# Product risk register - <product-name>
**Last reviewed:** YYYY-MM-DD **Owner:** <name> **Next review:** YYYY-MM-DD
## Active risks (n=22)
| ID | Category (ISO 25010) | Risk | Impact | Likelihood | Score | Mitigation(s) | Owner | Last review |
|---|---|---|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|
| PR-001 | Functional suitability | Pricing engine off-by-cent in EU markets | 5 | 3 | 15 | Property-based testing on rounding; nightly compliance test suite | Alice | 2026-05-01 |
| PR-002 | Security | OAuth refresh-token leak via logs | 5 | 2 | 10 | Log redaction middleware; quarterly secret-scan; presidio-pii-detection in CI | Bob | 2026-04-15 |
| PR-003 | Reliability | Stripe webhook delivery failure not retried | 4 | 4 | 16 | DLQ + retry; chaos test in staging weekly | Carol | 2026-05-10 |
| PR-004 | Performance | Catalog search slows under >10k SKUs | 4 | 3 | 12 | Elasticsearch tuning; k6 load test gate | Dan | 2026-03-20 |
| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
## Retired risks (n=5)
| ID | Risk | Retired date | Why retired |
|---|---|---|---|
| PR-R-001 | Legacy SOAP API maintenance | 2026-02-01 | API decommissioned in v3.0 |
| ... | ... | ... | ... |Step 4 - Link mitigations to test coverage
For each active risk, name at least one mitigation and link it to existing test coverage (or flag a gap):
| PR-001 | Pricing engine off-by-cent | 15 | Tests: tests/billing/test_promo_stacking.py + nightly compliance suite (PROJ-T123 + 124) | Alice |Use risk-coverage-mapper to generate the test↔risk map.
Step 5 - Quarterly review
Per ISTQB CTAL-TM, product risks should be re-scored at least quarterly:
## Q2 2026 review log
- **PR-001**: Impact unchanged (5); likelihood **lowered 3 → 2**
(property-based tests in place + 6 months no incidents). New
score: 10 (was 15).
- **PR-003**: Impact unchanged (4); likelihood **raised 4 → 5**
after Q1 webhook outage at provider. New score: 20 (was 16).
- **PR-007**: **Retired** - feature deprecated in v3.0.
- **New: PR-022**: Locale-related date formatting; impact 3,
likelihood 3, score 9. Owner: Eve.
Net change: 1 new, 1 retired, 1 risen, 1 lowered. Total active: 22.Step 6 - Seed the release matrix
When a release matrix starts:
Worked example - e-commerce product
A 24-risk register might decompose like:
| Category | Count | Avg score |
|---|---|---|
| Functional suitability | 6 | 13 |
| Performance | 3 | 11 |
| Security | 5 | 14 |
| Reliability | 4 | 12 |
| Compatibility | 3 | 9 |
| Usability | 2 | 8 |
| Maintainability | 1 | 6 |
Distribution suggests Security + Functional suitability are the top areas to invest in.
Anti-patterns
| Anti-pattern | Why it fails | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| One-time creation, never reviewed | Register becomes stale | Quarterly review cadence |
| Mixing per-release risks into the product register | Confuses long-lived from transient | Per-release risks in risk-matrix; product-level here |
| No retired-risks section | History lost; "why did we stop testing X?" unanswered | Always keep a retired-risks log |
| Score without recent re-review | Stale scores misinform planning | "Last review" date column; auto-flag stale entries |
| Mitigation missing test coverage link | Mitigation is theoretical; no evidence it works | Always link mitigation → test (or flag as gap) |
| ISO 25010 categories unused | Risk list skewed to functional only | Walk all 8 characteristics |
| Risk register in a wiki page that nobody opens | Effectively shelf-ware | Versioned in repo; reviewed at sprint planning |
Limitations
References
Related skills
attack-surface-test-checklist
Maps a code change to the security tests worth running against it. Classifies changed paths and file contents into nine attack surfaces (authentication, session management, input handling, file upload, deserialization, access control, API and web service, cryptography, data protection), attaches the matching OWASP ASVS 4.0.3 verification requirements, OWASP Top 10 2021 category IDs, and OWASP WSTG section numbers to each active surface, then emits a per-surface manual and automated test checklist bounded by what actually changed. Surfaces with no changed lines are excluded rather than carried as filler. Use when a pull request, release branch, or feature is about to be security tested and the team needs a targeted test list instead of a generic application-wide checklist.
code-change-shape-classifier
Classifies a code change set into four shapes (pure-logic, service-layer, ui-heavy, data-heavy) from file-path and file-content signals, computes the shape distribution over a window of git history, and attaches a relative per-layer test cost model (unit 1x, service 3x, UI 10x) so downstream planning works from one shared input. Produces the classification only: it does not prescribe a target unit:service:UI ratio, does not estimate hours, and does not select which tests to run. Use when a pull request, release branch, or epic needs its change shape labelled before test effort, pyramid balance, or coverage depth is decided.
definition-of-done
Pure-reference + checklist-generator for the team's Definition of Done (DoD) - explains the Scrum Guide's DoD definition ("a formal description of the state of the Increment when it meets the quality measures required for the product"), proposes a starter DoD with the 7-10 lines most teams need (code reviewed, unit tests, docs, AC met, deployed to staging, smoke passed, no a11y regressions, telemetry wired, observability in place), and emits a per-PR checklist a reviewer enforces. Use when the team doesn't have a DoD or wants to revise theirs.
dod-adherence-review
Audits an existing Definition of Done checklist line by line against repository evidence (review records, diffs, CI runs, coverage reports, scan output) and tags every line met, not met, or unverifiable, refusing to pass a line on self-attestation or on a claim with no matching diff. Covers the line-pattern-to-evidence mapping for the common checklist shapes (code reviewed, coverage threshold, docs updated, acceptance criteria covered, staging deploy plus smoke, no new accessibility regressions, telemetry wired), the entry-stage versus exit-stage split many teams run, the roll-up verdict rules, and the audit table that gets emitted. Does not author, revise, or soften the checklist. Use when a story or pull request is about to be marked done and a committed Definition of Done exists that nobody has actually checked the work against.
e2e-suite-budget
Caps E2E suite size by computing per-test ROI - (regressions caught × value) ÷ (runtime × flake rate × maintenance) - then ranks every end-to-end test and recommends which bottom-decile ones to retire, move to a lower layer, or fix. Use when CI is slow or E2E-dominated, flaky failures are rising, or quarterly to keep suite size within maintenance capacity. For strategic unit:service:UI layer ratios use test-pyramid-balancer, for the minimal per-deploy critical-path gate use smoke-suite-gate, and for quarantining flaky tests use flaky-test-quarantine; this prunes low-signal tests by ROI.
framework-choice-advisor
Pure reference catalog for picking a test automation framework - covers Playwright / Cypress / Selenium / WebdriverIO / Appium / Espresso / XCUITest / RestAssured / Karate / k6 / Locust with side-by-side tradeoffs on speed, cross-browser, mobile, parallelisation, language support, ecosystem maturity, CI integration; a decision tree for matching project NFRs to framework choice; and reference directory / fixture / CI layouts for the chosen stack. This is the **upstream selection step**: it decides which tool to adopt, not how to configure a tool already chosen, and not how to rebalance the unit / integration / E2E mix of an existing suite. Use when starting a new test-automation suite from scratch, before installing any tool.
heuristic-test-design-reference
Reference catalog of the four canonical heuristic test-design models - Bach's Heuristic Test Strategy Model (HTSM) with SFDPOT product elements, Whittaker's 'How to Break Software' attack patterns, Bolton's FEW HICCUPPS consistency oracles, and the ISO/IEC 25010 quality characteristics - for use when the tester has no user story, no acceptance criteria, and no documentation. This is the zero-documentation case: it does not read from a written story, and it yields test-case ideas rather than session charters. Use as the reference layer when generating coverage for a feature with no documented input.
post-mortem-author
Build-an-X workflow that produces a blameless post-mortem from an incident - captures the timeline (chronological event sequence with sources), root cause analysis (what + why, not who), impact (users / revenue / SLO debt), action items (with owners + due dates + measurable success criteria), and "what went well" (intentional). Per Google SRE: "Blameless postmortems are a tenet of SRE culture." Use after every user-visible incident, not just severe ones.
project-risk-register-builder
Build-an-X workflow producing a project-level risk register - risks to project execution (schedule slippage, environment instability, people / staffing, vendor / dependency, scope creep) rather than the product itself. Walks the author through ISO 31000-aligned identification, impact × likelihood scoring, mitigation strategy (avoid / mitigate / transfer / accept), and ownership; the project manager reviews it weekly. Use for release-execution risk. For product-quality risks use product-risk-register-builder, for the per-release product risk table use risk-matrix, and to sign off accepting one specific risk use risk-acceptance-decision-author.
qa-okr-author
Build-an-X workflow that drafts a QA team's quarterly OKR set - one to three Objectives, each with 3 - 5 measurable Key Results - from the team's current state (risk matrix, defect-trend narrative, test-run history, test-pyramid balance, compliance coverage). Every numeric target cites its source artifact (e.g., a defect-trend baseline's 2026-Q1 escape rate). QA-specific by design - generic OKR generators (Tability, Asana, ClickUp) don't know test metrics; the differentiation is the domain. Produces the OKR set itself - not the test-strategy document it sits inside, and not the risk-score calibration behind the baselines. Use at the start of each quarter to draft the OKR set the manager edits and the team commits to.
qa-vendor-evaluator
Build-an-X workflow that produces a side-by-side **commercial-vendor** evaluation matrix for QA tools - test-management platforms (TestRail / Qase / Xray / Zephyr / TestCollab), no-code platforms (mabl / Testim / Functionize / TestSigma / Reflect), visual regression services (Applitools / Percy / Chromatic), and commercial AI copilots - scoring each on capability fit, cost model, integration depth, vendor lock-in risk, exit cost, contractual posture, and customer-reference data. Scoped to commercial procurement - contract, lock-in, and exit-cost axes - not to choosing an open-source code-first framework on architectural fit. Use for commercial procurement decisions only - refuses to recommend a winner; the team owns the procurement choice.
risk-acceptance-decision-author
Build-an-X workflow that produces a structured risk-acceptance decision document - for risks the team has decided to accept (rather than mitigate / transfer / avoid). Walks the author through the ISO 31000 risk-acceptance criteria (rationale, sign-off, scope, review trigger, exit conditions), captures stakeholder approval, and links to the originating risk register entry. Output is a Markdown decision artefact that lives alongside the risk register and provides audit-defensible justification for the team's acceptance choice. Use when a risk register entry's Strategy column is set to Accept, or an already-accepted risk comes up for its scheduled re-review, an audit, or a post-incident look-back.
risk-coverage-mapper
Build-an-X workflow that produces a risk-to-test-coverage matrix - maps each risk in the product/release register to the tests / cases / monitoring that mitigate it. Walks the author through ingesting risks (from risk-matrix / product-risk-register-builder), inventorying test coverage (test cases via traceability-matrix-builder, automated tests via repo scan, production monitoring via observability dashboards), and computing per-risk coverage depth + identifying orphan risks (no coverage) + orphan tests (not linked to risks). Output is a Markdown matrix + executive summary. Use before a release sign-off or compliance audit, when the team must show which tests, cases, or monitors back each registered risk and which risks have nothing behind them.
risk-matrix
Produces the per-feature / per-release risk-matrix artifact itself: a structured intake (feature, category, impact 1-5 by likelihood 1-5, score), mitigations with owners and due dates, supporting both lightweight (impact by likelihood) and heavyweight (FMEA / Cost of Exposure) methods per RBT canon, output as a Markdown / spreadsheet the team reviews each sprint. Use when building the matrix artifact; to facilitate the live risk-storming meeting use risk-storming-facilitator, to calibrate scores across raters use risk-matrix-calibration, and to map the resulting risks onto test coverage use risk-coverage-mapper.
risk-matrix-calibration
Checks an already-written risk matrix against what actually happened. Maps each row's likelihood rating to observed defect density, test failure rate and code churn, maps its impact rating to the severity mix and escape rate, then classifies each row as over-stated, under-stated, in-agreement, or not calibrated, using stated reporting thresholds so small differences are not treated as findings. Every proposed rating change carries the observation that produced it, and every proposal is handed to the matrix owner rather than applied. Also emits candidate new entries for areas that show up in defect data but have no row. Owns calibration only: choosing a scoring methodology, designing the matrix structure, picking risk categories, mapping risks to test types, FMEA scoring, review cadence and file storage are all out of scope. Use when a matrix has been driving test decisions for at least three releases and nobody has yet checked whether its ratings match the defects, escapes and incidents that followed.
risk-storming-facilitator
Reference guide for planning and facilitating a risk-storming session yourself - meeting structure, participant roster, per-category brainstorm prompts (categories from risk-matrix), affinity grouping, impact by likelihood scoring, and mitigation assignment. Static reference only, not an active runner that writes the matrix file. Use to learn or teach the facilitation pattern, or to run a feature-kickoff session without agent assistance. For the matrix artifact itself use risk-matrix, to calibrate its ratings against real defect data use risk-matrix-calibration, and to map the resulting risks onto test coverage use risk-coverage-mapper.
smoke-suite-gate
Build-an-X workflow for a critical-path smoke suite that runs in <5 minutes - picks the 5-15 highest-business-value journeys (login, hero flow, checkout, payment, primary read), implements as fast E2E or API tests, gates per-deploy, retries on transient failures with quarantine. Use as the canary-precursor or per-deploy verification gate; the team's "if this fails, the build can't proceed" floor.
tdd-stuck-pattern-resolver
Pattern catalog for "I can't write the test first" moments - recognizes common testability blockers (singletons / static dependencies, network in constructors, time / random as hidden inputs, deeply nested construction, untestable boundaries) and proposes the refactor that unblocks TDD (extract interface, dependency injection, seam, ports-and-adapters). Use as TDD coaching when an engineer is stuck on a class of code. For a catalog of what-to-test heuristics with no story use heuristic-test-design-reference, to label a change's shape before planning test effort use code-change-shape-classifier, and for conventions on writing the test well once the code is testable use test-code-conventions.
test-case-from-live-feature
Build-an-X workflow that produces a test-case matrix from a **live, undocumented feature** - running app at a URL, screen recording, screenshot, or verbal brief - by combining structured exploration (Playwright trace / DevTools / accessibility tree) with the heuristic models in `heuristic-test-design-reference` (SFDPOT, Whittaker attacks, FEW HICCUPPS, ISO 25010). Output is a structured case matrix, not an exploratory session charter. Use when there is no story, no AC, and no documentation - only a live feature.
test-case-ideation-from-story
Takes a user story or feature spec and emits a markdown test-case matrix - one row per case (id, title, precondition, steps, expected, tier) covering happy path, alternate paths, boundaries, and negative paths - before any test code is written. Output is the human-reviewable matrix that goes into TestRail / Qase / Xray. Emits the human-reviewable case matrix itself - not Gherkin scenarios written against locked acceptance criteria, and not executable test code. Use as the first artifact a manual tester or three-amigos session produces from a story, ahead of automation.
test-effort-estimation
Turns a list of testable areas plus a change-shape distribution into a PERT three-point test effort estimate, reporting every row as a range around the expected value rather than a single number, requiring a named assumptions ledger across six mandatory categories, and recommending a per-layer ownership split across developer, automation, and exploratory roles. Owns the hours and the ownership recommendation only: it consumes a change-shape distribution rather than producing one, and it does not choose which tests to run or how deep coverage should go. Use when an epic or release has been broken into testable areas and someone is about to commit test capacity for a sprint.
test-pyramid-balancer
Build-an-X workflow that analyzes a repo's test mix (unit / integration / E2E counts + runtimes) and recommends rebalancing toward the test pyramid ratios per the change-set shape - pure-logic-heavy repo wants ~80/15/5; UI-heavy repo wants ~60/25/15. Detects 'ice-cream cone' (E2E-heavy) and 'hourglass' (integration-thin) anti-patterns. Use when the user asks about test distribution, test strategy, test balance, too many E2E tests, slow CI caused by tests, testing best practices, or rebalancing their test suite; also suitable for quarterly calibration of the test mix to codebase reality.
test-strategy-author
Authors a test strategy document (a master test plan) for a project, release, or feature - covers scope, in/out, test types per layer (unit / integration / contract / E2E / perf / security / a11y), risk-based test prioritization that maps top risks to test investment (per `risk-matrix`), tooling stack, environments, exit criteria, and ownership. Use when a team needs the release-readiness artifact stakeholders sign off on before significant test investment, and the reference engineering teams return to when scope or quality questions arise.
tool-selection-decision-record
Defines the output contract for writing down a chosen developer tool as a portable decision record: the observed project signal, exactly one primary recommendation, rationale that names the rejected alternative, what to read next, and a mandatory list of the conditions that would flip the choice. Adapts Architecture Decision Record conventions (context, decision, consequences, status, supersede rather than edit) to tool selection, and refuses any recommendation inferred from a README or a folder name instead of a manifest, lockfile, config file, or existing test directory. Distinct from a catalog or advisor that compares candidate tools on their merits: this owns the shape of the written record, not the comparison. Use when a tool has just been chosen (test framework, build tool, linter, package manager, migration tool) and the choice needs to be recorded so a later reader can see the signal, the rejected alternative, and what would reverse it.