Drafting exploratory charters
Have the model turn a feature, its risks and the time available into a set of exploratory testing charters — each a mission, a target and the information it should produce.
How it works
A charter keeps an exploratory session focused without scripting it: explore this area, with these resources, to discover this kind of information. The model drafts a set from the feature description and the risk list, sized to the available sessions, and spreads them across different risks so they don't all probe the same thing. A good prompt asks for each charter's purpose — which risk or question it addresses — so the set can be checked for gaps and overlaps. The drafts are a starting point for a planning conversation; testers rewrite, merge and drop charters before running them, and add new ones as sessions turn things up.
When to use it
When planning a round of exploratory testing; when several testers need to split a feature between them without overlapping; for teams adopting session-based testing who need examples of what a charter looks like; and when exploration keeps drifting towards the same comfortable areas.
Limitations
Charters drafted before anyone has touched the product reflect the documentation, not the product, and the best charters often come from what the first session revealed. The model tends to write charters that are either too broad to finish or too narrow to discover anything. A tidy set of charters can make a plan look complete when it simply mirrors the risk list it was given.
Watch for
Every risk is mapped to a charter, but one charter is too broad to finish in a session, and the debrief still marks its risks as explored. At each debrief, record what the session actually covered, and leave a risk open unless the notes show it was probed.
What you still own
Choosing and rewriting the charters, and adapting the plan as sessions show where the problems really are.
Cite this
Qlarify Labs. (2026). Drafting exploratory charters. Retrieved from https://labs.qlarify.fi/ai-in-testing/drafting-exploratory-charters