Too often, the teams assigned to build test coverage jump in without a clear plan or vision. Instead of a strategy and roadmap, coverage plan priorities are determined by which object shines the brightest or which product owner shouts the loudest. But without a system for surfacing what should be covered and why, test suites end up with gaps in coverage that slow down feedback loops.
A comprehensive test coverage plan outlines what your app does, identifies the behaviors that matter most, and determines which aspects need to be tested automatically versus manually. It’s not a spec, it's a roadmap for quickly establishing real coverage, without spending weeks in planning mode.
QA Wolf utilizes this five-step process when creating coverage plans. It’s designed to build functional, durable tests fast, even if your team is starting from zero.
Before you map workflows or write a single test case, you need to decide what you’re trying to cover—and why. Most teams will use one of these models, although they may not formally employ them. Rather, they use their intuition, informed by their knowledge of the product, to determine which test scenarios will contribute to the overall meaning and value of their coverage.
These models overlap by design. No single one is enough on its own, but together they offer a more balanced view of your product’s health. Some teams also layer in other dimensions like revenue impact, compliance requirements, or recency of change to further refine their priorities.
A workflow is a self-contained sequence of user actions that completes a distinct task. Each one should be independently runnable and start from a clean slate. If you have to reset or configure the app in a special way to test a path, that path should be a separate workflow.
These constraints aren’t arbitrary. They reflect how QA Wolf maintains thousands of tests across dozens of apps without duplicating effort or introducing instability. The more you define workflows this way from the start, the less you’ll spend maintaining brittle, interdependent tests later.
Use these five rules to define workflows:
Some example workflows:
These often map to user stories, feature flags, or product epics. Start broad, then refine. Group by feature set, navigational area, or customer intent—whatever best reflects how your teams deliver work.
Track workflows in a format that integrates with test planning and CI visibility—Git markdown files, a TestRail tree, or QA Wolf’s test graph all work. Prioritize visibility over tooling preference.
You don’t need to test everything at once. Focus on workflows that are critical to your customers and business. These are the ones that break production, block releases, or drive support tickets when they fail.
Tag each workflow with a priority:
We use a few simple questions to help teams make the call:
Don’t skip workflows that are manual-only—just make sure your team tracks them. You want complete visibility, even if some gaps are intentional.
Think of your coverage plan as a funnel: your team starts broad by mapping all workflows, then narrows its focus as it prioritizes and outlines specific behaviors. Front-load the top-priority workflows; the rest can be developed just-in-time, triggered by new features, bug reports, or repeat incidents. This lets you scale coverage as needed without wasting effort on low-risk paths too early.
Now that you've defined workflows, it's time to break them down into individual test cases. Each test case should cover one discrete behavior or decision point within the workflow.
That means:
Good examples:
Bad examples:
If you're unsure where to draw the line between one test and the next, start by writing one test for each validation rule, user action, or possible error condition. You can always consolidate later if some cases prove redundant.
Work in batches. Outline 10–20% of your test cases at a time so they stay aligned with product changes and don't go stale.
Outlines are the handoff between planning and automation. At QA Wolf, we follow the Arrange–Act–Assert (AAA) structure. Write out each test case outline as a comment block that includes:
Use consistent language for actions and UI elements. Your goal is to create an outline that is both readable and immediately implementable by anyone on the team.
// Test: Login with wrong password
// Arrange: Create user in database
// Arrange: Go to login page, fill in form with correct email and wrong password
// Act: Submit
// Assert: Show error message, stay on login page
Don’t treat your coverage plan as a one-and-done. It should evolve with the app. Review it every quarter with product and engineering:
Test automation only works if you’re testing the right things, the right way. A clear, actionable coverage plan gives your team the structure to do exactly that. It turns instinct into alignment, guesswork into repeatability, and scattered effort into high-impact testing.
When you define workflows upfront, prioritize by risk, and structure test cases around specific behaviors, your team avoids writing brittle tests and chasing edge cases that don’t matter. And when you treat the plan as a living artifact—updated with every release, incident, or roadmap shift—you keep coverage aligned with the customer experience.