Red Hat Catalog UAT Program

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) for the Red Hat Catalog SPA — human sign-off on staging before production promotion.

Epic: HUM-2179 · Story: HUM-2183 · Depends on: HUM-2060 (staging host + promotion gates)

Purpose

UAT complements automated validation (smoke, E2E, visual regression, security scans). It catches product, content, and UX issues that automation does not cover. UAT does not replace automated gates.

Environments (disambiguation)

See Red Hat Catalog Environment Promotion for full promotion paths.

Promotion gates

Staging → production (full UAT)

All of the following are required before clicking deploy_redhat_catalog:

1. deploy_redhat_catalog_staging succeeded on main
2. redhat-catalog-e2e-smoke passed against staging
3. visual_redhat_catalog_staging passed (pre/post deploy diff)
4. MR-blocking security jobs clean (or approved exceptions) — see security-scanning.md
5. UAT sign-off recorded (checklist + Jira comment; git record in redhat-catalog/docs/uat-records/)

The prod deploy job is manual in GitLab; the release owner must verify UAT before triggering it.

Experimental → staging (light UAT)

Experimental hosts are for iteration, not customer release. When opening an MR from experiment/<name> to main, use a light UAT pass on the experimental URL — not the full checklist:

After merge, staging receives the full UAT before prod.

Named approvers (staging → prod)

Confirm names with the product owner during checklist review (HUM-2060 open question on approval owners). Until confirmed, use these roles:

Any Block from product or design stops prod promotion until defects are fixed on staging and UAT re-run.

Runbook — request and run UAT

1. Request UAT (release owner)

When main pipeline completes staging deploy + automated gates:

1. Create or reuse a Release ticket in Jira (label redhat-catalog, link HUM-2179 epic).
2. Comment with pipeline URL, commit SHA, and summary of user-facing changes.
3. Label ticket uat-requested.
4. Notify approvers (#hummingbird or team channel — use team default).

2. Execute UAT (approvers / delegates)

1. Open uat-checklist.md against staging.
2. File results in redhat-catalog/docs/uat-records/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>.md.
3. Log defects as Jira bugs linked to the release ticket.

Expected turnaround: 2 business days from uat-requested for routine releases; same-day for hotfixes when approvers are available.

3. Sign off or block

• Pass: All checklist items pass or have accepted exceptions; all three approver rows signed; Jira comment posted (template below); label uat-pass.
• Fail: Label uat-fail; do not trigger deploy_redhat_catalog until staging is fixed and UAT re-run.

4. Promote to production (engineering release)

1. Verify Jira release ticket has uat-pass and linked sign-off record.
2. In GitLab main pipeline, run manual job deploy_redhat_catalog.
3. Comment on release ticket with prod pipeline URL.

What blocks release

Jira sign-off template

Post on the release ticket when UAT completes:

h3. UAT sign-off — staging → prod

*Staging URL:* https://images.staging.hummingbird-project.io
*Commit:* {full SHA}
*Pipeline:* {GitLab pipeline URL}
*Checklist record:* redhat-catalog/docs/uat-records/{filename}.md

||Role||Name||Decision||
|Product|{name}|Approve / Block|
|Design|{name}|Approve / Block|
|Engineering release|{name}|Approve / Block|

*Result:* Approved for prod / Blocked
*Defects:* {HUM-xxx links or "none"}
*Tester:* {name}, {date}

Suggested Jira labels

Optional custom field (if added in Jira project settings): UAT status (Not started / In progress / Passed / Failed).

Release ticket template

Create a Jira Task or Release issue per prod promotion:

## Release summary
- **Target:** staging → production
- **Commit:** 
- **User-facing changes:** 

## Automated gates
- [ ] Staging deploy green
- [ ] Smoke passed
- [ ] Visual regression passed
- [ ] Security scans clean (or exceptions documented)

## UAT
- [ ] Checklist completed ([uat-checklist.md](link))
- [ ] Sign-off record filed ([uat-records/](link))
- [ ] Product approve
- [ ] Design approve
- [ ] Engineering release approve

## Prod promote
- [ ] deploy_redhat_catalog triggered
- [ ] Post-deploy verification

Related documentation

• UAT checklist
• UAT records
• Environment promotion
• Testing guide — promotion gates

Out of scope

• Automating UAT (Playwright covers regression; UAT stays human)
• Legal/compliance sign-off (separate security program)