cxc-qa — Manual Surface QA Gate

Prove a built surface works by DRIVING it, not by inferring from green tests. No scenario closes on a status string; it closes on a captured artifact from a real surface, an adversarial pass, and a teardown receipt. Everything in this skill is E7 discipline (agent-followed, not hook-enforced); the one shipped E2 touchpoint is noted in §7.

Completion proof: dev verification gate (FAMILY-PROOF-01). Every PASS points at a non-empty artifact you (or your dispatched QA worker) captured THIS round.

2. Surface detection + faithful channels

State the exact surface and invocation BEFORE running each scenario. Use the channel faithful to the surface — CLI output parsed from the wrong layer is not evidence of the layer you changed:

Surface	Faithful channel	Artifact
HTTP API	curl -i (headers + body) — scenarios in references/http-api-qa.md	response capture
CLI	real invocation, stdout/stderr split + exit code — discipline in references/cli-tui-qa.md	terminal capture
TUI	tmux session at FIXED dims — mechanics in references/cli-tui-qa.md, visual rubric in references/visual-qa.md	plain + ANSI captures
Web UI	browser screenshot at a STATED viewport, read via view_image — workflow in references/visual-qa.md	screenshot(s)
Desktop GUI	computer-use + screenshots (per-app approval; never drive terminals/Codex itself)	screenshots + action log; native panels, menu-bar popups and approval prompts follow dev-devops native-desktop-acceptance.md §10 and macos-system-approvals.md

Tool choice for the browser/CU rows follows the shared portable browser policy; the inspect -> act -> re-inspect protocol applies. Data-shaped behavior may use parsed CLI/data output as its channel.

Modular References

Read the matching row before the governed action.

Condition	Reference
Choosing QA ownership or closing PABCD C	Scope and binding
Recording any scenario verdict or aggregate receipt	Evidence contract
Driving scenarios and reviewing artifacts	Adversarial classes and oracle passes
Finishing any QA pass	Teardown receipts
ANY visual surface verdict (web UI, TUI, desktop GUI)	Visual rubric
HTTP API surface scenarios	Wire-driving procedure
CLI or TUI surface scenarios	Session mechanics
Choosing browser/CU tools	Portable browser routing (QA-TOOL-LADDER-01)