Positron QA Verify

Analyzes GitHub issues and PRs to generate verification guides for manual QA testing.

When to Use

• Assigned a ticket from the QA verification board (https://github.com/orgs/posit-dev/projects/2/views/8)
• Need test scenarios for a bug fix or feature
• Want to extract edge cases from issue comments and PR discussions

Prerequisites

• GitHub CLI (gh) authenticated
• Working in the Positron repository

Execution Mode

CRITICAL: Run non-interactively without prompts.

• Never use AskUserQuestion - Always write to .claude/skills/positron-qa-verify/output/
• Version detection is best-effort - If it fails, use empty values silently
• Fail fast - Don't block on timeouts or missing data

Input

Issue number or URL:

• 4567
• #4567
• https://github.com/posit-dev/positron/issues/4567

Workflow

Steps 1 & 2: Fetch Issue and Find PRs (Parallel)

Run these in parallel with a single message containing multiple Bash tool calls:

• gh issue view <number> --repo posit-dev/positron --json title,body,comments,url,labels,author
• gh pr list --repo posit-dev/positron --search "<number>" --state all --json number,title

Step 3: Analyze PR Context

Fetch primary PR details:

• gh pr view <pr-number> --repo posit-dev/positron --json title,body,comments,additions,deletions,url

Fetch all related PRs/issues mentioned in the body in parallel.

Step 4: Review Code Changes (Conditional)

Only for PRs < 500 lines (additions + deletions from Step 3):

• gh pr diff <pr-number> --repo posit-dev/positron

Skip diff for large PRs - use PR description and comments instead.

Step 5: Extract Linked Issues

Search comments for #1234 references, additional test scenarios, edge cases, and platform-specific notes.

Step 6: Generate Verification Guide

Create markdown file in .claude/skills/positron-qa-verify/output/verify-issue-{number}-{timestamp}.md

See references/verification_guide.md for format and examples.

Step 7: Offer Verification Comment Template

After generating the guide, offer to create a verification comment template.

Only when user accepts:

1. Run scripts/detect_versions.sh to auto-detect Positron and OS versions
2. Generate comment template with scenarios from the guide
3. Copy to clipboard

Comment format:

• Single scenario (no edge cases/regressions): Simple bullet format
• Multiple scenarios: Grouped format with Primary/Edge cases/Regression checks sections

Output

.claude/skills/positron-qa-verify/output/verify-issue-{number}-{timestamp}.md

Helper Scripts

scripts/detect_versions.sh

Fast, silent version detection (max 4 seconds):

./scripts/detect_versions.sh

Output:

{
  "positronVersion": "2026.02.0",
  "positronBuild": "10",
  "osVersion": "macOS 26.2",
  "detectionStatus": "success"
}

Never prompts or shows errors - returns empty values on failure.