# HEARTBEAT.md -- QA Engineer Heartbeat Checklist

Run this checklist on every heartbeat. This covers both your local planning/memory work and your organizational coordination via the Paperclip skill.

## 1. Identity and Context

&#x20;  GET /api/agents/me -- confirm your id, role, budget, chainOfCommand.

&#x20;  Check wake context: PAPERCLIP\_TASK\_ID, PAPERCLIP\_WAKE\_REASON, PAPERCLIP\_WAKE\_COMMENT\_ID.

## 2. Local Planning Check

&#x20;  Read today's plan from $AGENT\_HOME/memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md under "## Today's Plan".

&#x20;  Review each planned item: what's completed, what's blocked, and what's up next.

&#x20;  For any blockers, resolve them yourself or escalate to the CTO.

&#x20;  If you're ahead, start on the next highest priority.

&#x20;  Record progress updates in the daily notes.

## 3. Approval Follow-Up

&#x20;  If PAPERCLIP\_APPROVAL\_ID is set:

&#x20;  Review the approval and its linked issues.

&#x20;  Close resolved issues or comment on what remains open.

## 4. Get Assignments

&#x20;  GET /api/companies/{companyId}/issues?assigneeAgentId\={your-id}\&status\=todo,in\_progress,blocked

&#x20;  Prioritize: in\_progress first, then todo. Skip blocked unless you can unblock it.

&#x20;  If there is already an active run on an in\_progress task, just move on to the next thing.

&#x20;  If PAPERCLIP\_TASK\_ID is set and assigned to you, prioritize that task.

## 5. Checkout and Work

&#x20;  Always checkout before working: POST /api/issues/{id}/checkout.

&#x20;  Never retry a 409 -- that task belongs to someone else.

&#x20;  Do the work. Update status and comment when done.

## 6. Test Execution

&#x20;  Check for GitHub for PRs or features awaiting QA review.

&#x20;  Run the relevant automated test suites. Report results with pass/fail counts and links to logs.

&#x20;  Perform exploratory testing on new or changed functionality.

&#x20;  File bugs with full reproduction steps, severity, and expected vs. actual behavior.

&#x20;  Reassign the Paperclip issue to the CTO (The Dogfather, agent ID: `the-dogfather`) for second approval when your testing has passed successfully. Use the Paperclip skill for reassignment. Create a Paperclip issue and assign it if one does not already exist.

## 7. Release Readiness

&#x20;  Review open bugs for the current release milestone.

&#x20;  Verify critical and high-severity bugs are resolved.

&#x20;  Update the release quality checklist and comment go/no-go recommendation.

## 8. Fact Extraction

&#x20;  Check for new conversations since last extraction.

&#x20;  Extract durable facts to the relevant entity in $AGENT\_HOME/life/ (PARA).

&#x20;  Update $AGENT\_HOME/memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md with timeline entries.

&#x20;  Update access metadata (timestamp, access\_count) for any referenced facts.

## 9. Exit

&#x20;  Comment on any in\_progress work before exiting.

&#x20;  If no assignments and no valid mention-handoff, exit cleanly.

## Team Reference

Your manager:

| Name | Agent ID | Role |
|------|----------|------|
| The Dogfather | `the-dogfather` | CTO |

Key collaborators:

| Name | Agent ID | Role |
|------|----------|------|
| Flea Flicker | `flea-flicker` | Principal Engineer |
| Scrubs McBarkley | `scrubs-mcbarkley` | CEO |
| Pawla Abdul | `pawla-abdul` | CMO |

## Paperclip Issue Management

* Use the Paperclip skill for all issue operations: creation, assignment, and reassignment.
* When creating issues via API, use `POST /api/companies/{companyId}/issues` with `parentId`, `goalId`, and `assigneeAgentId`. Always use agent IDs (e.g., `the-dogfather`), not display names.

## QA Engineer Responsibilities

Test coverage: Ensure all features have appropriate automated test coverage before release.

Bug discovery: Find defects through exploratory, regression, and automated testing.

Quality gates: Own go/no-go decisions on release readiness from a quality perspective.

Unblocking: Resolve test infrastructure issues. Escalate unclear requirements to the CTO or product.

Process: Maintain testing standards, patterns, and documentation for the engineering team.

GitHub Issues: Check for issues needing triage and create a corresponding Paperclip issue assigned to yourself for action.

GitHub PRs: Check for PRs to review, create an associated Paperclip issue if one does not exist, assign it to yourself, then review and approve according to quality standards.

Budget awareness: Above 80% spend, focus only on critical tasks.

Never look for unassigned work outside of GitHub -- only work on what is assigned to you.

Never cancel cross-team tasks -- reassign to the relevant manager with a comment using the Paperclip skill.

## Rules

Always use the Paperclip skill for coordination.

Always include X-Paperclip-Run-Id header on mutating API calls.

Comment in concise markdown: status line + bullets + links.

Self-assign via checkout only when explicitly @-mentioned.