audit-tests — Diagnostic Test Auditor (7-Layer + RTM)

Invocation: "audit tests" · "find gaps" · "full sweep" · "7-layer audit" · "rtm check" · "test quality".

> Enforcement harness: this skill delegates all deterministic checks (hash-pin, escape-scan, CRAP, architecture, bias, Gherkin lint) to the in-repo installation of @intentsolutions/audit-harness. Node repos install via pnpm add -D @intentsolutions/audit-harness; other languages vendor via the package's install.sh. Never reference ~/.claude/... paths from a target repo's hooks or CI — the enforcement must travel with the code.

Read-only diagnostic skill. Classifies the repo, maps applicable layers from the 7-layer testing taxonomy, runs deterministic gates, builds requirements traceability (RTM / personas / journeys), writes TEST_AUDIT.md + updates tests/TESTING.md, and mandatorily hands off to implement-tests when P0/P1 gaps exist.

No filesystem mutations other than TEST_AUDIT.md (transient) and the observational sections of tests/TESTING.md, tests/RTM.md, tests/PERSONAS.md, tests/JOURNEYS.md.

Overview

Diagnostic-only test suite auditor for any Intent Solutions (or compatible) repo.

Classifies the repository, maps the 7-layer testing taxonomy, runs deterministic

gates via in-repo @intentsolutions/audit-harness, builds RTM/personas/journeys

traceability, and writes TEST_AUDIT.md plus observational sections of

tests/TESTING.md. When P0/P1 gaps exist it hands off to implement-tests

instead of implementing tests itself.

Prerequisites

• A git working tree for the target repository
• Ability to run Read/Glob/Grep/Bash against that tree
• For deterministic gates: in-repo audit-harness (or install path documented

for the language) — never wire target CI/hooks to ~/.claude/...

You are the engineer

Deterministic tools do the grading. The engineer owns the walls (features/*.feature, coverage thresholds, architecture rules, TESTING.md policy sections, RTM.md MoSCoW tags). The AI operates inside them and never grades itself — every gate is a tool that returns exit 0.

Ownership (audit-tests may READ; never modify)

Artifact	Owner
features/*.feature	Engineer — hash-pinned
Policy sections of tests/TESTING.md	Engineer — hash-pinned
Coverage / mutation / CRAP thresholds	Engineer (policy)
.dependency-cruiser.js, .importlinter, deptrac.yaml, ArchUnit rules	Engineer — hash-pinned
RTM.md MoSCoW tag overrides	Engineer — hash-pinned; AI never lowers a MUST
Test code, step glue, fixtures	AI — edits allowed (in implement-tests only)

The 7-layer taxonomy (canonical)

Layer	Name	Reference
L1	Git hooks & CI enforcement	shared-refs/hooks-and-ci.md
L2	Static analysis & linting	shared-refs/linters-formatters-types.md + shared-refs/security-testing.md
L3	Unit & function (walls 2–7 live here)	shared-refs/frameworks.md, shared-refs/crap-and-complexity.md, shared-refs/architecture-constraints.md, shared-refs/property-and-fuzz.md, test-quality-deep-audit.md
L4	Integration & regression (contract, migration, fakes, IaC)	shared-refs/integration-and-infra.md, shared-refs/specialized-testing.md
L5	System quality (perf, sec, a11y, compat, chaos)	shared-refs/security-testing.md, shared-refs/specialized-testing.md, shared-refs/property-and-fuzz.md § Chaos
L6	E2E / BDD / Gherkin (smoke, visual)	shared-refs/e2e-testing.md, shared-refs/acceptance-tests-gherkin.md
L7	Acceptance & business validation (UAT)	shared-refs/acceptance-tests-gherkin.md

Full definitions and gap-fill rationale: {baseDir}/references/taxonomy.md.

Classification → applicable layers: {baseDir}/references/layer-applicability.md.

Walls live inside layers. Wall 1 (Acceptance) = L7 spec + L6 glue. Walls 2–7 = L3. See taxonomy.md § "Walls inside layers".

Instructions

Step 0.5 — Harness freshness check (automatic, ≤ 500ms, cache 24h)

Run this early so drift surfaces without remembering to invoke /sync-testing-harness:

CACHE=~/.cache/audit-harness/freshness-check
mkdir -p "$(dirname "$CACHE")"

# Skip if checked in last 24h

if [[ -f "$CACHE" ]] && [[ $(($(date +%s) - $(date -r "$CACHE" +%s))) -lt 86400 ]]; then
  cat "$CACHE"
else
  latest=$(curl -fsS --max-time 3 https://registry.npmjs.org/@intentsolutions/audit-harness/latest 2>/dev/null | python3 -c 'import sys,json;print(json.load(sys.stdin)["version"])' 2>/dev/null || echo "unknown")
  installed=$(pnpm list @intentsolutions/audit-harness --depth=0 --json 2>/dev/null | python3 -c 'import sys,json;d=json.load(sys.stdin);print(d[0].get("devDependencies",{}).get("@intentsolutions/audit-harness",{}).get("version","none"))' 2>/dev/null || echo "none")
  if [[ "$latest" != "unknown" && "$latest" != "$installed" && "$installed" != "none" ]]; then
    msg="⚠ audit-harness drift: installed=$installed → latest=$latest. Run /sync-testing-harness or: pnpm up @intentsolutions/audit-harness"
  else
    msg="✓ audit-harness: $installed (latest: $latest)"
  fi
  echo "$msg" | tee "$CACHE"
fi

• Cache hit (< 24h old) → instant, no network
• Network failure → silently skipped (offline-safe)
• Drift detected → surfaced in TEST_AUDIT.md under ## Freshness
• Not blocking — audit continues regardless

Step 1 — Read context

1. Check for tests/TESTING.md. If absent → proceed to discovery. If present → read ## Classification, ## Thresholds, ## Waived layers. Engineer policy wins.
2. Verify the target repo has @intentsolutions/audit-harness installed (Node: package.json devDep; other langs: .audit-harness/ directory exists). If absent, add to the handoff payload as L0 install. Hooks and CI reference the in-repo harness, never ~/.claude/ paths.
3. Verify hash manifest via pnpm exec audit-harness verify (Node) or scripts/audit-harness verify (vendored). Interpret exit code:

• 0 (OK) — pinned hashes match; continue.
• 2 (HARNESSTAMPERED) — pinned artifact changed; halt the pipeline; flag in TESTAUDIT.md and do not proceed.
• 3 (no manifest) — fresh repo or never initialized; continue. Log "no hash manifest — fresh repo" in the report. This is NOT a halt condition.

1. Check current branch. On main / develop / protected branches, any handoff at Step 8 will prompt via AskUserQuestion. On feat/* branches, handoff runs autonomously.

Step 2 — Classify

Deterministic floor first (the harness brain). Run pnpm exec audit-harness classify (Node) / scripts/audit-harness classify (vendored) / audit-harness classify to emit the read-only audit-profile/v1 value — the UNION of detected classifications (service / api / library / cli / frontend / embedded / monorepo + skill / agent / hook / mcp / plugin / marketplace / action), the resolved gate set (a projection of registry.v1.json, recorded by registry_hash), and an explicit unresolved[].

Then dispatch test-discovery-agent (via Task tool) only to refine the unresolved[] residue (ambiguous/novel repos) — it proposes classification patches a human pins in .audit-harness.yml/TESTING.md; it never overrides the deterministic classification value (keeps CI reproducible). Matrix + signals: {baseDir}/references/layer-applicability.md (itself generated from the registry datum via audit-harness gen-layer-applicability).

Monorepo: the profile carries per-package-classify; classify each package independently and run the full pipeline per-package.

Step 3 — Map applicable layers

The applicable gates are already resolved in the audit-profile/v1 from Step 2 (dimension + applicability + enforcement per gate). Dispatch taxonomy-mapper-agent to map presence/absence/configured/enforced on top of the profile's gate set + the TESTING.md compliance overlay.

Output: gap list tagged P0/P1/P2 per layer-applicability.md severity symbols.

Step 4 — Run deterministic quality gates

Run the harness gate-runners — each is read-only and emits gate-result/v1 Evidence Bundle rows the quality-gate-runner-agent consumes:

Verb	Dimension	Notes
audit-harness conform	conformance	SKILL.md / .mcp.json / plugin / agent vs bundled content-addressed schemas
audit-harness audit [--deep]	testing-depth	crap-score + per-layer presence (does NOT execute the repo's suite)
audit-harness scan	security / hygiene / skill-quality	shells out to gitleaks/osv/semgrep/syft/markdownlint/lychee; consumes j-rig verdict
audit-harness currency	upstream currency	advisory report only (no exit authority)

New gates ship enforcement: advisory; blocking is engineer-pinned in TESTING.md, FP-rate-gated (audit-harness fp-rate, ≤ 5% bar — see docs/gate-promotion.md). Then dispatch quality-gate-runner-agent for the L3 measurement tools and capture exit-code + report:

Gate	Command
Coverage	pytest --cov --cov-fail-under=$(TESTING.md coverage.line) or framework equivalent
Mutation	mutmut run / npx stryker run / cargo mutants run
CRAP & complexity	python3 {baseDir}/scripts/crap-score.py --target both --out reports/crap/
Architecture	bash {baseDir}/scripts/arch-check.sh
Bias count	bash {baseDir}/scripts/bias-count.sh
Gherkin lint	bash {baseDir}/scripts/gherkin-lint.sh

Gate failure on prod CRAP > 30, test CRAP > 15, project average > 10, architecture violation > 0, or coverage below policy floor → halt the pipeline; record in TEST_AUDIT.md.

Step 5 — Meta-audit (RTM / personas / journeys)

Dispatch three specialists in parallel (Task tool):

• rtm-builder-agent — rebuild tests/RTM.md from Gherkin scenarios, ADRs, product docs, engineer-declared REQs, commit tags. Apply MoSCoW precedence (explicit tag → source default → engineer override → SHOULD fallback). Preserve engineer overrides. See {baseDir}/references/rtm-personas-journeys.md.
• persona-coverage-agent — rebuild tests/PERSONAS.md; compute per-persona flow coverage; flag personas below threshold.
• journey-mapper-agent — rebuild tests/JOURNEYS.md; per-step layer mapping; flag untested steps.

Classify findings:

Finding	Severity
Uncovered MUST requirement	P0 (blocks audit — triggers handoff)
Uncovered SHOULD requirement	P1 (advisory; regulated overlay escalates to P0)
Uncovered COULD requirement	P2 (logged only)
WON'T requirement	excluded from coverage math
Orphaned test (no linked REQ)	P1 advisory (regulated: P1; normal: P1)
Persona below flow-coverage threshold	P1 advisory
Journey step untested (step linked to a MUST REQ)	P0; (linked to SHOULD) P1; (COULD) P2

Step 6 — Escape-scan on any pending diff

Dispatch escape-detection-agent:

bash {baseDir}/scripts/escape-scan.sh --staged    # reads policy floors from tests/TESTING.md

Exit grammar: 0 clean · 1 CHALLENGE · 2 REFUSE. Any REFUSE halts the audit with the specific pattern recorded in TEST_AUDIT.md.

Step 7 — Write reports

1. TEST_AUDIT.md at repo root (transient; short-lived):

• Grade (letter + numeric)
• Classification confirmed + applicable layers + waived layers
• Per-layer presence / config / enforcement table
• P0/P1/P2 gap list
• RTM summary (by MoSCoW tier)
• Persona + journey coverage summary
• Escape-scan result

1. tests/TESTING.md — update observational sections only (## Installed gates, ## Frameworks, ## Last audit, ## Traceability) via Edit tool, never Write. Policy sections untouched. Schema: {baseDir}/references/testing-md-spec.md.

Step 8 — Mandatory handoff to implement-tests

if any(P0 gaps) OR any(P1 gaps):
    payload = {
        "classification": {...},
        "tests_md_path": "tests/TESTING.md",
        "p0_gaps": [...],
        "p1_gaps": [...],
        "rtm_gaps": [...],         # uncovered MUSTs
        "persona_gaps": [...],
        "journey_gaps": [...],
        "install_order": [L1, L2, L3, ...]   # from scaffold-architect-agent
    }
    if branch in {main, develop, protected}:
        confirm = AskUserQuestion("P0/P1 gaps found. Run implement-tests now?")
        if not confirm: exit with report
    Skill("implement-tests", args=payload)
else:
    print "✓ No P0/P1 gaps. Audit clean."

Handoff pattern mirrors repo-sweep → gist-auditor — no silent escalation, but autonomous on feature branches per global git policy.

Escape-detection response grammar

Severity	Exit	Action
FLAG	0	logged; pipeline continues
CHALLENGE	1	halts until engineer-approved comment
REFUSE	2	pipeline halted

Patterns that REFUSE (non-exhaustive — full list in {baseDir}/shared-refs/security-testing.md and the script itself):

Pattern	Why
Coverage threshold lowered below TESTING.md floor	Policy violation
.feature file mutated	Wall 1, hash-pinned
MUST → weaker tier in RTM.md	Requirements downgrade
Architecture-rule config edited	Wall 7, hash-pinned
Wholesale test-file deletion	Suite weakening
Mutation bypass (pragma: no mutate, // Stryker disable)	Wall 4 evasion (CHALLENGE)

Deep reference for the full grammar, rationale, and wall derivations: {baseDir}/references/philosophy.md.

Specialist agents (Phase 1 — single-file)

Each lives at ~/.claude/agents/{agent-name}.md. Audit-tests dispatches via Task tool.

Agent	Responsibility
test-discovery-agent	Walk repo; detect frameworks + stack; classify repo type; map source↔test files
taxonomy-mapper-agent	Presence / config / enforcement per-layer map given classification
quality-gate-runner-agent	Execute coverage / mutation / CRAP / arch / bias / gherkin scripts; parse outputs
escape-detection-agent	Run escape-scan.sh + harness-hash.sh --verify; report REFUSE / CHALLENGE / FLAG
rtm-builder-agent	Build/update RTM.md; apply MoSCoW precedence; flag orphans + uncovered
persona-coverage-agent	Compute per-persona flow coverage in PERSONAS.md
journey-mapper-agent	Map journey steps to layer-tests in JOURNEYS.md

Phase 2 (deferred): each agent may be upgraded to a full skill bundle with its own references/ scripts/ evals/ — see the implementation plan's "Phase 2 Roadmap".

Discovery and pre-flight

Full discovery logic (config-file scan, language detection, package-manager detection, monorepo detection): {baseDir}/references/discovery-preflight.md.

Quality gate deep-dives

Catalog of every gate tool across 10 sweep categories (aligned to 7-layer taxonomy): {baseDir}/references/quality-gates-sweep.md.

Per-layer test-quality bias rules, OWASP mapping, mutation interpretation: {baseDir}/references/test-quality-deep-audit.md.

GitHub-scoped audit (CI health, branch protection, coverage-threshold enforcement): {baseDir}/references/github-audit.md.

Output

Clean audit

AUDIT COMPLETE — {repo-name}
Grade:            A (92/100)
Classification:   service
Applicable:       L1, L2, L3, L4-integ, L4-contract, L5-sec, L6-smoke
Waived:           L5-a11y (no UI), L7-UAT
P0 gaps:          0
P1 gaps:          0
RTM:              22 MUST / all covered · 14 SHOULD / 14 covered
Escape-scan:      clean
Report:           TEST_AUDIT.md
TESTING.md:       updated (observational sections)
Handoff:          none needed

Gaps found (feat branch — autonomous)

AUDIT COMPLETE — {repo-name}
Grade:            C (68/100)
P0 gaps:          2 (L3 coverage below 80; REQ-002 MUST uncovered)
P1 gaps:          5
Handoff →         implement-tests (autonomous; feat branch)

Gaps found (main branch — confirmation prompt)

AUDIT COMPLETE — {repo-name}
Grade:            C (68/100)
P0 gaps:          2
P1 gaps:          5
Branch:           main (protected) — prompting for handoff confirmation...

Examples

Example 1 — Fresh Python library, no tests yet.

Run audit tests → test-discovery-agent classifies as library, no TESTING.md present → taxonomy-mapper-agent reports L1, L2, L3 all absent (P0), L4–L7 waived per library applicability → rtm-scaffolder schedules skeleton creation → handoff payload: install_order: [L1, L2, L3] → autonomous handoff fires (feat branch) → implement-tests scaffolds pytest + coverage + mutmut + ruff + pre-commit + starter tests.

Example 2 — Mature service, previously audited.

Run full sweep. All layers report installed; coverage 82% (above 80 floor); mutation kill rate 74% (above 70 floor); CRAP max 22 (below 30). Grade: A (92/100). TESTING.md#Last audit updated with today's date. No handoff.

Example 3 — Monorepo with three packages.

Run audit tests. test-discovery-agent returns monorepo: true, packages: [a, b, c]. Each package classified independently (packages/a = service, packages/b = library, packages/c = cli). Each gets a per-package TESTING.md. Aggregate TESTAUDIT.md at repo root has three sections. Handoff payload includes per-package installorder arrays.

Example 4 — PR lowers coverage threshold to bypass gate.

A PR proposes [tool.coverage.report] failunder = 60 in pyproject.toml. TESTING.md#Thresholds has coverage.line: 80. escape-detection-agent runs escape-scan.sh --staged. The script reads floor 80 from TESTING.md, sees failunder dropped to 60, emits [REFUSE] coverage failunder lowered below policy floor (80), exits 2. Audit halts. No TESTAUDIT.md produced. No handoff. Engineer must revert the threshold edit or run harness-hash.sh --init to legitimize a policy change.

Example 5 — HIPAA-compliant service with uncovered SHOULD.

Repo has Compliance overlay: HIPAA in TESTING.md. RTM.md has one uncovered SHOULD (error-message retry logic). Normally P1 advisory, but the regulated overlay promotes it to P0. Handoff fires with p0_gaps: [{layer: L3, gap: REQ-034 retry logic uncovered (SHOULD, HIPAA overlay)}]. On main branch → AskUserQuestion prompts; engineer approves; implement-tests proceeds.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Diagnosis	Fix
rg: error parsing flag -E: grep config error: unknown encoding	Shell has grep aliased to rg (ripgrep); flag grammar differs.	Use /usr/bin/grep explicitly, or command grep, or call the native Grep tool. All detection examples in this SKILL assume GNU grep.
error: unexpected argument '-m' found (from find)	Shell has find aliased to fd; flag grammar differs.	Use /usr/bin/find explicitly, or command find, or call the native Glob tool. All detection examples assume GNU find.
gh label create appears to succeed but label already existed	gh label create is a silent no-op without --force.	Use gh label create --description "..." --color --force when creating labels idempotently in automation.
HARNESS_TAMPERED at Step 1	A hash-pinned file was modified since last --init.	Review the diff; if legitimate, run pnpm exec audit-harness init (Node) / scripts/audit-harness init (vendored) to re-pin; if unexpected, investigate the diff before re-init.
escape-scan REFUSES on a legitimate threshold change	Thresholds are policy — lowering triggers REFUSE.	Engineer edits tests/TESTING.md#Thresholds, then runs harness-hash.sh --init. AI cannot do this step.
test-discovery-agent returns repo_type: unknown	No recognizable manifest (package.json, pyproject.toml, etc.).	Add the correct manifest for your language; or set Repo type: manually in tests/TESTING.md#Classification.
Handoff does not fire on feat branch	Branch name does not match feat/* pattern, or no P0/P1 gaps found.	Check branch name; if gaps exist and handoff still does not fire, check that Skill tool is in the allowed-tools frontmatter.
AskUserQuestion prompt loops on main	Engineer keeps declining handoff — expected behavior.	Decline is logged; TEST_AUDIT.md still produced. To force handoff, merge to a feat branch first.
rtm-builder-agent keeps re-promoting a MUST	Engineer override was not preserved because RTM.md was rewritten (Write instead of Edit).	Ensure the agent uses Edit tool on RTM.md; engineer override is detected by row-level MoSCoW value diff.
Missing coverage.py / mutmut / other tool	Measurement tool not installed.	Handoff to implement-tests with the specific layer; it installs the measurement tool per the L3 playbook.
Monorepo produces only root-level audit	pnpm-workspace.yaml / turbo.json / nx.json not present or unrecognized.	Confirm workspace config is at repo root; or manually declare per-package TESTING.md files.

Edge cases

• Missing framework: record gap; skip the measurement; emit install_order: [framework] in handoff.
• Docker unavailable for integration tests: skip L4 integration measurement; still report the gap as "unmeasured — Docker missing".
• Hash mismatch: HARNESSTAMPERED — halt before any other work; do not write TESTAUDIT.md.
• Engineer-declared waiver: any layer listed in TESTING.md#Waived layers is skipped silently; appears in report under "Waived (per engineer policy)".
• Regulated overlay: HIPAA/SOX/PCI/SOC2/GDPR/FedRAMP tag in TESTING.md promotes SHOULD uncovered to P0 — see rtm-personas-journeys.md § "Regulated overlay".

Resources

• {baseDir}/references/taxonomy.md — 7-layer canonical definitions
• {baseDir}/references/layer-applicability.md — classification → layer matrix
• {baseDir}/references/testing-md-spec.md — tests/TESTING.md schema
• {baseDir}/references/rtm-personas-journeys.md — RTM / personas / journeys spec
• {baseDir}/references/discovery-preflight.md — discovery and pre-flight checks
• {baseDir}/references/github-audit.md — repo-scoped audit engine
• {baseDir}/references/test-quality-deep-audit.md — bias, mutation, OWASP
• {baseDir}/references/quality-gates-sweep.md — tool catalog aligned to taxonomy
• {baseDir}/references/philosophy.md — Seven Walls derivations, escape-grammar state machine, Human/AI ownership rationale
• {baseDir}/scripts/arch-check.sh — architecture rule dispatcher
• {baseDir}/scripts/bias-count.sh — bias-pattern counter
• {baseDir}/scripts/crap-score.py — CRAP calculator
• {baseDir}/scripts/gherkin-lint.sh — advisory Gherkin quality check
• {baseDir}/scripts/escape-scan.sh — diff-based escape-attempt detector (reads floors from tests/TESTING.md)
• {baseDir}/shared-refs/harness-hash.sh — SHA-256 manifest verifier
• {baseDir}/shared-refs/*.md — per-concern deep references (frameworks, architecture, security, etc.) shared with implement-tests