Checklists

Checklists are Edsger's quality assurance framework. They ensure that every phase of development meets your team's standards — from feature analysis through deployment. Each checklist targets specific phases and roles, with structured item types that go beyond simple checkboxes.

Why Checklists?

AI can produce outputs quickly, but quality requires verification. Without structured quality gates:

• Different team members check different things, inconsistently
• Important steps get skipped under time pressure
• There's no record of what was verified and by whom
• Quality standards drift over time as tribal knowledge is lost

Edsger's checklists solve this by:

1. Formalizing standards: Define exactly what must be verified at each phase
2. Assigning responsibility: Each checklist targets a specific role (PM, Dev, QA, Tech Lead, etc.)
3. Tracking completion: Record who checked what, when, and with what result
4. Scaling via templates: Create reusable templates and apply them across products

Phases

Checklists can be assigned to any combination of these 20 development phases:

A single checklist can apply to multiple phases — for example, a "Code Quality" checklist might apply to both Code Implementation and Code Refine phases.

Roles

Each checklist is assigned to a specific role responsible for completing it:

Item Types

Checklist items support four types for structured verification:

Boolean (Yes/No)

Simple pass/fail check. The most common type.

"All API endpoints have error handling" → Yes / No

Text

Free-form text input for notes, explanations, or evidence.

"Describe the caching strategy used" → "Redis with 5-minute TTL for user sessions..."

Number

Numeric value with optional min/max bounds and unit.

"Test coverage percentage" → 85 (min: 80, max: 100, unit: %)

Passes when the value meets the minimum threshold.

Select

Dropdown selection from predefined options.

"Performance impact assessment" → Pass / Fail / Pending

Passes when the selected value is not "Fail", "Failed", or empty.

Product-Level vs Feature-Level

Product-Level Checklists

Defined at the product level and apply to all features in the product. These represent your team's standard quality criteria.

• Created in the product's Checklists tab
• Automatically included when feature checklists are initialized
• Changes to product-level checklists affect all future feature initializations

Feature-Level Checklists

Defined for a specific feature only. Use these for one-off quality requirements unique to a particular feature.

• Created in the feature's Checklists tab → Manage Checklists sub-tab
• Marked with a "Feature-specific" badge
• Only apply to that one feature

Creating Checklists

From Scratch

1. Navigate to your product → Checklists tab (or a feature's Manage Checklists tab)
2. Click New Checklist → Create from Scratch
3. Fill in:
   • Name: Descriptive checklist name
   • Role: Who is responsible
   • Phases: Which phases this applies to (multi-select)
   • Description: Optional details
4. Add items with title, type, and configuration
5. Save

From Template

1. Click New Checklist → Use Template
2. Browse available templates (filtered by role and phase)
3. Click Apply on a template
4. The template's checklist and all its items are copied to your product

Checklist Templates

Templates are reusable checklist blueprints that can be shared across products and teams.

Creating Templates

1. Navigate to Checklist Templates (accessible from the checklists management area)
2. Click New Template
3. Define name, description, role, phases, and visibility
4. Add items with types and configurations

Visibility Levels

Template Actions

• Apply to product: Copies the template as a new product-level checklist
• Duplicate: Creates a personal copy for modification
• Edit/Delete: Only the creator can modify or remove templates

Executing Checklists

Initializing

When you're ready to start working on a feature's checklists:

1. Navigate to the feature → Checklists tab → Checklist Execution
2. Click Initialize Checklists (or Sync Checklists to add newly created ones)

This creates execution records for all applicable checklists (both product-level and feature-specific). The operation is idempotent — running it again adds any new checklists without affecting existing progress.

Completing Items

1. Expand a checklist accordion
2. Click Start to move from "Pending" to "In Progress"
3. Fill in each item:
   • Boolean: Toggle the checkbox
   • Text: Enter your response
   • Number: Enter the value (validated against min/max)
   • Select: Choose from the dropdown
4. Add optional notes for any item
5. Click Complete when all required items are filled

Checklist Statuses

You can reset a completed checklist back to pending if re-verification is needed.

Validation

The MCP checklists/validate endpoint checks whether all checklists for a given phase are completed. The AI pipeline uses this to verify quality gates are cleared before advancing. If checklists are incomplete, the pipeline can pause and notify the team.

AI Integration

Checklists are fully accessible from AI Chat:

• List checklists: AI can view all product checklists
• Create checklists: AI can create new checklists with items based on discussion
• Manage items: AI can add, update, or delete checklist items
• Phase validation: The workflow pipeline checks checklist completion at verification gates

Best Practices

• Start with templates: Create templates for common quality patterns and apply them across products
• One role per checklist: Keep checklists focused on a single role's responsibilities
• Use specific item types: Number items with thresholds (e.g., "coverage >= 80%") are more actionable than boolean "Is coverage adequate?"
• Initialize early: Initialize feature checklists when development begins so the team knows what's expected
• Sync regularly: Use "Sync Checklists" after adding new product-level checklists to include them in in-progress features