TM-02
Story Summary Suggests a Test or QA Task
Type Misclassification
Default severity: medium
Product BacklogPrioritizationQualityBusiness Value
What it detects
A Story or Feature has a summary suggesting it is a testing, QA, or verification task — not a deliverable piece of user-facing functionality. Test activities should be tracked as subtasks, tasks, or dedicated test issue types, not as user stories, as they distort velocity with non-feature work.
Detection formula
test_keywords = config.tm.test_keywords // defaults (EN): \[\'test\', \'testing\', \'verify\', \'verification\', \'validate\', \'QA\', \'regression test\', \'smoke test\', \'acceptance test\', \'UAT\', \'e2e test\', \'integration test\', \'unit test\', \'manual test\', \'automated test\', \'test case\', \'test suite\'\] // defaults (SK/CZ): \[\'testovanie\', \'test\', \'otestovať\', \'overenie\', \'verifikácia\', \'akceptačný test\', \'regresný test\'\] IF issue.type IN config.workflow.story_types AND (summary OR description_first_line) MATCHES any(test_keywords) CASE_INSENSITIVE THEN FLAG probable_test_task Severity: High (single keyword), Critical (2+ keywords or summary starts with \'Test\')Examples in practice
- A team shows a story or feature has a summary suggesting it is a testing, qa, or verification task while test keywords is set to see 5l.2.
- Example signal: A Story or Feature has a summary suggesting it is a testing, QA, or verification task — not a deliverable piece of user-facing functionality.
Suggested response
Retype or rewrite summaries so issue types match the actual work described.
Coaching playbook
Symptom
A Story or Feature has a summary suggesting it is a testing, QA, or verification task — not a deliverable piece of user-facing functionality. Test activities should be tracked as subtasks, tasks, or dedicated test issue types, not as user stories, as they distort velocity with non-feature work.
Why it matters
When "Story Summary Suggests a Test or QA Task" keeps appearing, the team is signalling a repeatable process gap. Left unexamined, the pattern hides where work really stalls and makes improvement metrics harder to trust.
What you can achieve
Retype or rewrite summaries so issue types match the actual work described.
Facilitation questions
- What system change would stop "Story Summary Suggests a Test or QA Task" from firing again?
- What do the cited issues have in common — same root cause or same workaround?
- Who owns the two-week experiment and how will we verify on the next import?
Run this rule against your own tracker data with Flow Analyzer.