Pester Failure Analysis
PowerShell/PowerShell
Investigates failing Pester tests in PowerShell CI jobs by following a six-step workflow from pull request status to documented fix recommendations.
Investigate a specific test failure to its root cause and document the why.
Install QA Investigation
$ npx skills add fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents --skill qa-investigation -a claude-codeProject install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.
$ gh skill install fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents qa-investigation --agent claude-codeProject scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/qa-investigation .claude/skills/qa-investigation && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.
Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/
Install the "qa-investigation" agent skill from https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents/tree/main/skills/qa-investigation into .claude/skills/qa-investigation/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "qa-investigation", then confirm the skill loads.Claude Code copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$skill-installer install https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents/tree/main/skills/qa-investigationType this inside Codex. $skill-installer <name> installs a curated skill from openai/skills. The installer writes to $CODEX_HOME/skills (default ~/.codex/skills). Restart Codex if the skill does not show up.
$ npx skills add fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents --skill qa-investigation -a codexProject install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.codex/skills/.
$ gh skill install fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents qa-investigation --agent codexProject scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .agents/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/qa-investigation .agents/skills/qa-investigation && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.agents/skills/ instead of .agents/skills for a personal install.
Codex skills documentation · loads skills from .agents/skills/
Install the "qa-investigation" agent skill from https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents/tree/main/skills/qa-investigation into .agents/skills/qa-investigation/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "qa-investigation", then confirm the skill loads.Codex copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$ npx skills add fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents --skill qa-investigation -a cursorProject install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.cursor/skills/.
$ gh skill install fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents qa-investigation --agent cursorProject scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .cursor/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/qa-investigation .cursor/skills/qa-investigation && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.cursor/skills/ instead of .cursor/skills for a personal install.
Cursor skills documentation · loads skills from .cursor/skills/, .agents/skills/, .claude/skills/, .codex/skills/
Install the "qa-investigation" agent skill from https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents/tree/main/skills/qa-investigation into .cursor/skills/qa-investigation/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "qa-investigation", then confirm the skill loads.Cursor copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$ gemini skills install https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents.git --path skills/qa-investigation--scope user (default) or --scope workspace; --path is the subfolder of the repo that holds the skill; --consent skips the security confirmation prompt.
$ npx skills add fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents --skill qa-investigation -a gemini-cliProject install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.gemini/skills/.
$ gh skill install fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents qa-investigation --agent gemini-cliProject scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .gemini/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/qa-investigation .gemini/skills/qa-investigation && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.gemini/skills/ instead of .gemini/skills for a personal install, then run /skills reload.
Gemini CLI skills documentation · loads skills from .gemini/skills/, .agents/skills/
Install the "qa-investigation" agent skill from https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents/tree/main/skills/qa-investigation into .gemini/skills/qa-investigation/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "qa-investigation", then confirm the skill loads.Gemini CLI copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$ gh skill install fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents qa-investigationInstalls for Copilot at project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Preview a skill first with gh skill preview. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).
$ npx skills add fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents --skill qa-investigation -a github-copilotProject install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.copilot/skills/.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .github/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/qa-investigation .github/skills/qa-investigation && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.copilot/skills/ instead of .github/skills for a personal install. Commit .github/skills so cloud agent and code review can use it.
GitHub Copilot skills documentation · loads skills from .github/skills/, .claude/skills/, .agents/skills/
Install the "qa-investigation" agent skill from https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents/tree/main/skills/qa-investigation into .github/skills/qa-investigation/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "qa-investigation", then confirm the skill loads.GitHub Copilot copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
$ npx skills add fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents --skill qa-investigation -a opencodeOpenCode documents no install command of its own. Project install goes to .agents/skills/; add -g for ~/.config/opencode/skills/.
$ gh skill install fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents qa-investigation --agent opencodeProject scope by default (.agents/skills/); add --scope user for a personal install.
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .opencode/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/qa-investigation .opencode/skills/qa-investigation && rm -rf skills-srcUse ~/.config/opencode/skills/ instead of .opencode/skills for a personal install.
OpenCode skills documentation · loads skills from .opencode/skills/, .claude/skills/, .agents/skills/
Install the "qa-investigation" agent skill from https://github.com/fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents/tree/main/skills/qa-investigation into .opencode/skills/qa-investigation/ in this project. Copy the whole folder (SKILL.md and every file beside it), keep the folder name "qa-investigation", then confirm the skill loads.OpenCode copies the folder itself, the same result as the manual copy. Check what it changed before you commit it.
Facts
- Skill name
qa-investigation- GitHub stars
- 249
- Token cost
- ~1.7k tokens
- SKILL.md length
- 798 words
- Files
- 5 (incl. references)
- Skills in repo
- 10
- Repo updated
- First seen
- Licence
- MIT
At a glance
Investigate a specific test failure to its root cause and document the why.
- Works in 5 steps: Reproduction & Triage → Evidence Collection → Hypothesis & Root Cause → …
- A test fails and you need the real cause
- SKILL.md covers When to Use This Skill, When NOT to Use This Skill, Tool Agnosticism and Core Process, plus 3 more sections
- Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md
What it does
QA Investigation is an agent skill from fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents. Investigate a specific test failure to its root cause and document the why. Detects whether a failing test is flaky (intermittent) or a deterministic bug during reproduction. Use when a test fails and you need the real cause, not just to make it green. Execution layer, not strategy review. Keywords: flaky test, intermittent failure, debugging tests, root cause analysis, test failure triage, bug hunt, why does this test fail.
Its SKILL.md is about 1.7k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 5 other files, including reference files (for example `references/examples.md`, `references/flow.md` and `references/templates.md`).
It sits in Testing & QA, covering Failing and flaky tests and Root cause analysis. The repository describes itself as: A practical library of agents, instructions, and skills designed specifically for QA Automation Engineers, focusing on production-oriented solutions. The licence is MIT.
When your agent uses it
- A test fails and you need the real cause
- Not just to make it green
Example prompts
- “/qa-investigation”
Workflow steps
5 steps, taken from the step headings in SKILL.md.
What it can do on your machine
Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 65a72d5. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.
Tool permissions
Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.
From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.
Runs code
No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.
From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.
Network
No URLs in SKILL.md.
From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.
Credentials
Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.
From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.
Context cost
QA Investigation loads about 1.7k tokens when it runs, and up to ~5.5k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 111 tokens; SKILL.md has 798 words of instructions outside code blocks.
Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.
Safety
Auto-check passed
The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.
Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.
SKILL.md
The full file from fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents at commit 65a72d5, republished under its MIT licence (© fugazi). 798 words, ~1,678 tokens.
Download SKILL.mdSave it as
.claude/skills/qa-investigation/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 4 other files; get the full folder from GitHub.- name
- qa-investigation
- description
- Investigate a specific test failure to its root cause and document the why. Detects whether a failing test is flaky (intermittent) or a deterministic bug during reproduction. Use when a test fails and you need the real cause, not just to make it green. Execution layer, not strategy review. Keywords: flaky test, intermittent failure, debugging tests, root cause analysis, test failure triage, bug hunt, why does this test fail.
- license
- Complete terms in LICENSE.txt
QA Investigation
A persistent, file-backed investigation journal for a specific failing test. This is the execution layer: it resolves a concrete failure. It does not validate strategy or architecture (grill-me-qa) nor generate QA deliverables (qa-manual-istqb).
The core idea: your context window is volatile RAM; the filesystem is persistent disk. Writing goals, evidence, and decisions to markdown prevents context drift during a long investigation.
When to Use This Skill
- A test fails intermittently (flaky) or deterministically (bug), and you need the root cause.
- The investigation spans many tool calls, multiple runs, or more than one session.
- You want a durable record of what you found, decided, and why.
When NOT to Use This Skill
- Authoring a test from scratch — use the relevant automation/framework skill.
- Designing a framework or coverage strategy — strategy validation (
grill-me-qa) or artifact generation (qa-manual-istqb). - Simple questions or quick lookups (fewer than ~5 tool calls).
- General review of non-test production code.
The boundary is not "is it a selector / browser issue / timeout" — any of those can be worth investigating. The boundary is whether the request needs a persistent, multi-step root-cause investigation or is a one-shot tactical task. If uncovering the why takes evidence, runs, and iteration, use this skill.
Tool Agnosticism
This method is independent of any test framework — web, API, mobile, embedded, unit, load. Terms like "browser", "selector", "network requests", or "CI vs local" are illustrative, not requirements; substitute the equivalent in your stack.
Core Process
The phases are the same whether the failure is flaky or a deterministic bug. The skill discovers the classification during triage — it does not assume it up front.
Phase 1: Reproduction & Triage
- Reproduce reliably; isolate variables (parallelism, repeat count, environment, data/state).
- Determine: intermittent (flaky), deterministic (bug), or non-reproducible? This is a finding, not an input.
- Record the classification and the evidence that supports it.
- Goal: a confirmed reproduction or a documented non-reproducible failure.
Non-reproducible path: if the failure cannot be reproduced after a bounded number of attempts, do not force a label. Record it as non-reproducible with partial evidence, note the suspected nature (infrastructure, app logic, or test-side timing), and escalate or flag for observation. Log the decision and reason to
qa_investigation_findings.md. See Flow for detail.
Phase 2: Evidence Collection
- Capture logs, stack traces, screenshots, traces, retry counts, dependency activity, timings.
- Multimodal content (images, page/dependency data, PDFs) does not persist in context — write it to
qa_investigation_findings.mdas text immediately. - Redact sensitive data (tokens, cookies, credentials, email addresses, PII) before persisting; do not write raw screenshots, traces, logs, or network captures verbatim — summarize them in text with sensitive parts masked.
- Note environment specifics: build/version, platform, device, data conditions, worker count.
- Goal: enough evidence for a defensible hypothesis.
Phase 3: Hypothesis & Root Cause
- Form the leading hypothesis (race condition, timing, selector/view issue, app bug, environment, shared state, data flakiness).
- Test it in a way that can reject it; confirm or reject; record the confirmed cause and the evidence.
- Goal: a confirmed root cause, not a guess.
Show full SKILL.md (306 more words)Show less
Phase 4: Fix & Validation
- Decide the fix (test-side vs product-side) and, critically, the alternatives you rejected and why.
- Apply it, then validate stability over repeated runs.
- Goal: a stable, verified fix with a documented decision.
Phase 5: Prevention
- Decide how to prevent recurrence: a shared helper, a lint rule, documentation, a regression guard.
- Record the preventive action(s).
- Goal: the failure does not come back silently.
File Purposes
Scale the file scope to the investment level (triaged at the start — see Flow). Higher value = fuller record; lower value = leaner:
| Investment | Files in project root | How much to write |
|---|---|---|
| P1 high-value / blocking | All three: plan + findings + progress | Full pipeline: goal, phases, decisions, errors, run log |
| P2 medium | plan + findings | Phases and the why; progress only if the session runs long |
| P3 low-value / cosmetic flake | findings only | Evidence + classification + suspected cause; move on |
Each investigation creates the files above in the project root:
| File | Purpose | When to Update |
|---|---|---|
qa_investigation_plan.md | Goal, phases, decisions, error log | After each phase completes |
qa_investigation_findings.md | Root cause, evidence, technical decisions | After ANY discovery |
qa_investigation_progress.md | Session log, run/result records | Throughout the session |
Critical Rules
- Create the plan first — non-negotiable; the plan is your persistent memory. For a P3 (low-value) case, the
findingsfile is the plan — create that first. - 2-Action Rule — after every 2 read/search ops, save key findings to
qa_investigation_findings.md. - Read before decide — re-read the plan before major decisions.
- Update after act — mark phase status, log errors, note files changed.
- Log ALL errors — with attempt number and resolution.
- Never repeat failures — if an action failed, the next must differ.
- Classify after reproducing, not before — a wrong early label poisons the investigation.
References
© fugazi, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file
Files
SKILL.md and 4 other files (references) in skills/qa-investigation of fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents.
- SKILL.md
- LICENSE.txt
- references/examples.md
- references/flow.md
- references/templates.md
Open the folder on GitHubat commit 65a72d5
Compare with similar skills
QA Investigation next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.
| Skill | Stars | Used in | Tokens | Auto-check | Licence | Repo updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QA Investigation this skillfugazi/test-automation-skills-agents | 249 | — | ~1.7k | Automated safety check: Pass | MIT | |
| Pester Failure AnalysisPowerShell/PowerShell | 56k | — | ~5.1k | Automated safety check: Pass | MIT | |
| Diagnoseavibebuilder/claude-prime | 120 | — | ~1.2k | Automated safety check: Pass | MIT | |
| Diagnose a Red Rundifferent-ai/openwork | 24k | — | ~779 | Automated safety check: Pass | Custom licence | |
| Eval Triage And Improvementmicrosoft/eval-guide | 138 | — | ~5.9k | Automated safety check: Pass | MIT | |
| cmux Package Test Bisectmanaflow-ai/cmux | 28k | — | ~1.5k | Automated safety check: Pass | Custom licence |
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Related
Categories
Questions about QA Investigation
What does QA Investigation do?
Investigate a specific test failure to its root cause and document the why. QA Investigation is an agent skill from fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents. Investigate a specific test failure to its root cause and document the why.
When should I use QA Investigation?
QA Investigation fits situations like: A test fails and you need the real cause; not just to make it green.
How do I install QA Investigation in Claude Code?
Run `npx skills add fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents --skill qa-investigation -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/qa-investigation in fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents) into .claude/skills/qa-investigation in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.
How do I install QA Investigation in Codex?
Run `npx skills add fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents --skill qa-investigation -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/qa-investigation in fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents) into .agents/skills/qa-investigation in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.
Can I use QA Investigation in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?
Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents --skill qa-investigation -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/qa-investigation, .gemini/skills/qa-investigation, .github/skills/qa-investigation and .opencode/skills/qa-investigation in your project.
What does QA Investigation need to run?
SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: QA Investigation is instructions for the agent only.
Does QA Investigation access the network?
SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.
Is QA Investigation safe to install?
Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.
What licence does QA Investigation use?
QA Investigation is published under the MIT licence (from the LICENSE file in the skill folder). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.
How many tokens does QA Investigation use?
About 1.7k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 6.7k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 3.8k tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.
What are the alternatives to QA Investigation?
Skills that share tags, products or a category with QA Investigation: Pester Failure Analysis (PowerShell/PowerShell, 56k stars), Diagnose (avibebuilder/claude-prime, 120 stars), Diagnose a Red Run (different-ai/openwork, 24k stars) and Eval Triage And Improvement (microsoft/eval-guide, 138 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.
Who maintains QA Investigation?
fugazi (a GitHub user) maintains it in fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents, which has 249 GitHub stars. The repository holds 10 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 3, 2026.
Source: fugazi/test-automation-skills-agents on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.