Standard operating procedure · EN5A · Engineering

Release Test Cycle

Transactional procedure owned by Test & Assurance in Engineering. 6 numbered steps, 2 of them a person deciding and 4 of them agent work … more

Engineering manual Service view

Procedure code

EN5A

Transactional

Rule versions in force

v1.7 · v3.4

2 governing rules stacked over it

In force since

2025-10-22

Earliest effective date across those rules

Last reviewed

2026-08-02

Latest review date across those rules

Rules approved by

Director, Quality Engineering

Rule health

2/2

0 under review · 0 superseded

There is no document register behind this header. The version, the dates and the approver names are read off the governing rules this procedure runs inside, which is the closest thing the estate holds to a document control record. Nobody wrote these procedures. There is no document library behind this page and no Word file anywhere in the estate. Every procedure below is generated from rows this platform already holds: the line and its ordered stations, the owning team and the person accountable for it, the policy items bound to that team, and the governance gates seeded against the function. The steps, the owners, the gates, the approvers, the dwell times and the volumes are read straight off those rows. The sentences that join them together are generated. Read a procedure as the estate describing itself, not as a document somebody signed.

Purpose and scope

What this procedure is for and where it stops

To run release test cycle to one repeatable standard inside Test & Assurance, part of Engineering. more

Entry condition

Runs transactional. Starts when an upstream system posts an event.

Exit condition

The unit clears sign quality gate, released by Director, Quality Engineering. more

In scope

Every unit of release test cycle raised inside Test & Assurance, from the trigger below through to the final step.
4 of the 6 steps, which run without a person present.
2 decisions that stop the line until a named person releases it.

Out of scope

Anything outside the envelope set by the owning team. It leaves the line at a gate and becomes the named approver's decision.
Work that belongs to another function. This line records no handoff, so nothing leaves it mid-flow.
The 4 steps carried on the shared AI GBS spine. They are done for this line but not by this function.

Who owns it

Runs the line

Test Orchestrator

Accountable person

Director, Quality Engineering

The end of the escalation path. Above them sits Engineering Chief of Staff for the function.

That team’s remit

Owns test run work end to end inside Engineering. more

That remit describes the whole team, not this one procedure, so its counts are larger than the ones on this page.

Autonomy

86% now · ceiling 92%

Test generation, selection and triage are the highest-autonomy work in Engineering. more

The procedure, step by step

6 numbered steps · 2 of them stop for a person

A step is one station on the line. more

No.	Step	Who does it	What happens	System of record	Time on the step	In flight
01	Select regression set GBSgbs	Test Generation Agent	Test Generation Agent performs this step unattended on the shared AI GBS transaction spine, outside the function, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote.	Group ERP — Materials and Inventory	30 minstandard 1.1 hrs	37
02	Generate new tests GBSgbs	Test Generation Agent	Test Generation Agent performs this step unattended on the shared AI GBS transaction spine, outside the function, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote.	Group ERP — Materials and Inventory	2.0 hrsstandard 3.5 hrs	23
03	Execute GBSgbs	Test Generation Agent	Test Generation Agent performs this step unattended on the shared AI GBS transaction spine, outside the function, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote.	Group ERP — Materials and Inventory	1.2 hrsstandard 2.3 hrs	34
04	Triage failures GBSgbs	Test Generation Agent	Test Generation Agent performs this step unattended on the shared AI GBS transaction spine, outside the function, inside the envelope its owning team has set, and writes an evidence record naming the actor, the authority it acted under and the digests of what it read and wrote.	Group ERP — Materials and Inventory	9 minstandard 14 min	18
05	Escalate blocker HumanpolicyDecision	Director, Quality Engineering Releases: Director, Quality Engineering	Work stops. Director, Quality Engineering reviews what the line has produced and either releases the unit or sends it back. Nothing downstream of this step runs until that decision is made.Holds until: Held for a named human when the unit exceeds the test run decision envelope, when confidence falls below the floor, or when a policy clause is engaged.	Group ERP — Materials and Inventory	6.3 hrsstandard 7.4 hrs	2
06	Sign quality gate HumanpolicyDecision	Director, Quality Engineering Releases: Director, Quality Engineering	Work stops. Director, Quality Engineering reviews what the line has produced and either releases the unit or sends it back. Nothing downstream of this step runs until that decision is made.Holds until: Held for a named human when the unit exceeds the test run decision envelope, when confidence falls below the floor, or when a policy clause is engaged.	Group ERP — Materials and Inventory	4.5 hrsstandard 5.5 hrs	4

The swimlane

The same steps, laid out by who is holding the work

Three lanes: a person deciding, an agent working, and the shared services spine. more

Person2 stations and 74% of the dwellAgent0 stations and 0% of the dwellShared spine4 stations and 26% of the dwell1 crossing between lanes

Human

decides

Agent

does the work

GBS

shared spine

System

attributed by rule

Group ERP — Materials and Inventory

Click any station to see who does it, what it costs in time, the rule that gates it and the system attributed to it.

Run the procedure

One unit walked along that swimlane on the happy viable agentified path

Press run and a single unit enters at station 01. Each station takes exactly the dwell this platform records for it and is held by whoever the estate says holds it. more

speed

worked clock

00:00

allowance clock

00:00

stations cleared

0/6

the happy path, worked time0 min of 15 hrs

the same run against its allowance0 min of 20 hrs

Human

decides · 2

Agent

does the work · 0

GBS

shared spine · 4

run log

Nothing has happened yet. more

where the worked time goes15 hrs a unit

Person11 hrs · 74%Shared spine3.9 hrs · 26%1 crossing between lanes

what makes this path viable

The lanes are the recorded lanes. 2 of the 6 stations stop for a person and every one of them still does on this run.
Every one of the 2 decisions is still taken by the people who hold them. The happy path is that each one is released first time, not that it is skipped.
The owning team is held to a 92% autonomy ceiling and this run sits at 26% unattended, inside it.
1 system is attributed across the stations, and 0 of them are connected. Nothing in this run has been watched executing against a real system of record.

what would have to change

1 of the 2 decisions can be handed over inside the 92% ceiling. more

could move to the agent lane

05 Escalate blocker — held by Director, Quality Engineering, 6.3 hrs a unit

stays with a person

06 Sign quality gate — The last decision on the line. Something on every procedure ends with a person, so this one is never offered.

what this run is, and what it is not

This is a run, not a forecast. more

Happy means nothing goes wrong: no station raises an exception, no gate sends the unit back, no rework loop fires and nothing sits in a queue between stations. more

The second clock is the allowance. more

A decision may be handed to the agent lane only if two things hold … more

The run reads the station rows only. more

What this run does not model: arrival patterns, contention between procedures for the same person, shift patterns, weekends, learning curves, and the cost of anything. more

Run it again, going wrong

The same unit, the same stations, broken the way the estate already records breaking

This is the same unit on the same stations, breaking. more

No break below was chosen. more

One play head, two tracks, the same scale. The clean run stops when it runs out of stations; the other one keeps going.

As written

6 stations, nothing waiting, nothing sent back

0 min of 15 hrs

now Select regression set · Test Generation Agent · 30 min

As the ledger has it

the same stations, plus 4 categories the estate already counts

0 min of 34 hrs

now Select regression set · Test Generation Agent · 30 min

personagentshared spinework the break addsnobody working it

What breaks, and where it is counted

No break below was chosen. more

What the two runs say together

4 counted categories land on this procedure. more

What this run cannot claim

These breaks are shown together on one unit so the shape of a bad day fits on one screen. more

Two clocks run. Worked time is the sum of the time the work is actually being done … more

Roles and responsibilities

3 named parties

The responsibility grid is assigned by a rule, not lifted from a chart. more

Party	RACI	Steps	Duty	Escalates to
Test Orchestrator orchestrator	Runs the line	0	Sequences this line, holds its timetable and decides what has to surface to a person. more	Raises to Director, Quality Engineering when a unit falls outside the envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Test Generation Agent agent A4% autonomy · ceiling A4% 99% clean · 9% overridden	Responsible	4	Runs the repeatable portion of test & assurance inside the shared transaction spine at spine cost and spine controls.	Escalates to Director, Quality Engineering when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.
Director, Quality Engineering person	Accountable and responsible	2	Holds 2 decisions on this line. more	Accountable to Director, Quality Engineering for the decisions held here.

Party

RACI

Steps

Duty

Escalates to

Test Orchestrator

orchestrator

Runs the line

Sequences this line, holds its timetable and decides what has to surface to a person. more

Raises to Director, Quality Engineering when a unit falls outside the envelope or confidence drops below the floor.

Test Generation Agent

agent

A4% autonomy · ceiling A4%

99% clean · 9% overridden

Responsible

Runs the repeatable portion of test & assurance inside the shared transaction spine at spine cost and spine controls.

Escalates to Director, Quality Engineering when the unit falls outside the decision envelope or confidence drops below the floor.

Director, Quality Engineering

person

Accountable and responsible

Holds 2 decisions on this line. more

Accountable to Director, Quality Engineering for the decisions held here.

Decision points and escalation

2 places this procedure stops

05 · Escalate blocker

6.3 hrs

Held for a named human when the unit exceeds the test run decision envelope, when confidence falls below the floor, or when a policy clause is engaged.

Director, Quality Engineering

06 · Sign quality gate

4.5 hrs

Held for a named human when the unit exceeds the test run decision envelope, when confidence falls below the floor, or when a policy clause is engaged.

Director, Quality Engineering

Handoffs out of this procedure

Nothing leaves this procedure for another function. It completes inside Test & Assurance.

The rules this procedure runs inside

2 governing rules

Test & Assurance Decision Envelope

active

EN5-POL-200 · envelope · vv1.7

Agents in this lane may act without a human when the test run sits inside the stated value, risk and confidence envelope. more

Approved by Director, Quality Engineering · in force 2025-10-22 · reviewed 2026-06-16

Binds Test Generation Agent, Regression Selection Agent, Flaky Test Agent, Performance Test Agent, Test Data Agent, Coverage Gap Agent

Global

Test & Assurance Evidence Standard

active

EN5-POL-201 · evidence · vv3.4

Every autonomous decision writes inputs, the rule version applied, the model and prompt version, the output and a reversal path. more

Approved by Director, Quality Engineering · in force 2026-01-07 · reviewed 2026-08-02

Binds Test Generation Agent, Regression Selection Agent, Flaky Test Agent, Performance Test Agent, Test Data Agent, Coverage Gap Agent

APAC

Systems this procedure touches

1 named · 0 connected

System attribution is a rule, not a reading. more

System	Vendor	Domain	Criticality	Steps	Connection
Group ERP — Materials and Inventory	SAP S/4HANA MM	supply	high	6	modeled

0 of the 1 systems on this procedure is connected to the platform, and none of the twenty-six in the estate register is. 1 of them are marked as taking a write back, which is a property of the system, not a live path from here.

How it performs

End to end

14.6 hrs

Summed from the time each step sits, standard 20.1 hrs — running at 73% of the standard.

Touchless

89%

Agent share

67%

A week

5,597

In flight

118

Effort a week

646 human minutes · 231 agent minutes

Volume multiplied by the time on each step. more

Assurance over this procedure

4 governance gates sit above it

The twenty-four controls and eighteen exception classes in this platform are held at estate level … more

Gate	What trips it	Who releases it	Clock	Waivable
Production release authorization approval	Any deployment to a production environment	Release manager and service owner	1 business day	No
Security-sensitive or public API change approval	Authentication, cryptography, payment paths or any published interface contract	Senior engineer and security engineer	1 business day	No
Database migration approval	Any schema change or irreversible data operation	Data owner and CTO delegate	2 business days	No
Agent-authored code sample review oversight	Weekly review of 10% of agent-authored merged changes	Engineering governance	Weekly	Yes

Next to it on the same team

Test & Assurance

Flaky Test Remediation

EN5B

Performance Baseline

EN5C

All of Engineering

What this document is and is not

These procedures describe the modeled estate. more

Actions

What is waiting on a person

What one procedure document gives you, and what to check before you treat it as the standard.

151

named approvers appear across the library

Every decision point on every procedure carries a job title, not a queue. more

143

steps in the library hand their unit to another function

A handoff is where a procedure stops being one team’s problem. more

controls exist in the estate, and they belong to no procedure in particular

Controls and exception classes are held estate-wide. more

Operations

What this desk is allowed to start

A surface that only reports is not operable. more

Trigger and bound

A procedure document prints purpose, scope, entry and exit, the numbered steps with the actor on each, the roles and their RACI position, the swimlane, the decision points and escalation, the handoffs, the governing rules with version and approver, the systems by rule and the timings. more

Live observability

What the record shows right now

The whole library, by lane, so a single document can be read against the estate it came from. more

Current distribution

2,748 steps

Agent, inside the function1,38951%

Agent, on the shared spine85131%

Person deciding at a gate50818%

Is policy and strategy coming to fruition

Whether the written intent is holding here

Half. The document is complete and every actor on it is measured more

Not holding on the record

A procedure here carries a version, an approver, an in-force date and a last-review date. more