Generate Requirements from a Crawl
How to generate test cases in ContextQA by having an AI agent crawl your live application — from an AI Insights activity or from a new requirement — and how to read the crawl requirement it produces.
Quick answer
Start Assets → Requirements → New Requirement → Generate from Crawl, give the AI agent a target URL and a concrete user goal, then choose the scenario types and approval mode. ContextQA keeps the live crawl, clarifications, source context, AI analysis, and generated tests together in one requirement so an AI agent or reviewer can trace each test back to what the crawl observed.
What this page covers
A crawl hands a task to an AI agent that navigates your live application in a browser, then generates test cases from what it finds. Every crawl produces a crawl requirement — the record the generated test cases are created from, which preserves the context the crawl started from.
You can start a crawl two ways:
From an AI Insights activity — turn a discovered user activity into test cases. See AI Insights.
From a new requirement — describe a flow yourself and let the agent explore it.
Both paths produce the same kind of crawl requirement, which you read the same way.
Starting a crawl from AI Insights activities
When you generate test cases from one or more activities in an AI Insights report, the Generate test cases drawer opens. Its subtitle explains the model: Each selected activity produces its own requirement. Nothing is merged across activities.
The drawer is a four-step flow.
1. Analysis
Analysis starts as soon as the drawer opens, so you review what the AI actually found before configuring anything. For each activity it works out the prerequisite steps and the clarifications worth asking, and summarizes them in a What the AI found card.
Activities that have already produced a requirement are skipped. If every activity you selected has already been generated, the drawer shows an Already generated state instead — close it and pick at least one activity that hasn't been generated yet.
When the analysis finishes, click Continue to clarifications.
2. Clarifications
Each activity that needs a decision shows one or more questions. The AI's recommended answer is preselected, so change only what you disagree with — or choose Other to enter your own answer. A progress indicator tracks how many questions you have answered, and Use recommended resets every answer to the AI's suggestion.
You can also attach a prerequisite step the generated tests should reuse. When nothing needs deciding, the step shows Nothing needs deciding and you can carry on.
Click Continue to inputs.
3. Inputs
Review the selected activities and edit the start URL for each one. Expand Show Configuration Options to set how the tests are generated (see Crawl configuration options below), and optionally add extra context.
Click Start crawls.
4. Crawl
ContextQA creates one crawl requirement and one live crawl session per activity. Each row shows its status and links to the requirement it produced:
Crawling
The crawl is running.
Already generated
The activity already had a requirement, so it was skipped.
Failed
The crawl couldn't start.
You can close the drawer once crawls start — each requirement fills in as its own crawl completes. Use View live crawl to watch a running crawl, or View requirement to open the result.
Starting a crawl from a new requirement
You can also start a crawl without an AI Insight.
Open the New Requirement dialog from the requirements library.
On the Choose how you'd like to generate your test cases screen, select Generate from Crawl and click Get started.
Complete the Inputs step, then start the crawl.
The Crawl flow has two steps: Inputs and Crawl.
Inputs
Fill in the crawl inputs:
Target URL — where the crawl starts. It becomes the first step of the crawl, so it is always required, for example
https://app.example.com/login.What should the crawl explore? — the task handed to the AI agent, for example "Sign in, add a product to the bag, apply a coupon and complete checkout." Use the Example Prompts below the field for inspiration.
Name this requirement (optional) — leave blank to name it after the date and time the crawl started.
Additional context (optional) — anything the AI should know that isn't in the instructions above.
Expand Show Configuration Options to set the generation options described below.
Click Start Crawl. ContextQA creates the requirement and a live browser session, then shows the result card with a link to the requirement (REQ-<id>) and a View live crawl button while the crawl runs. You can close the dialog — the crawl continues in the background and the requirement fills in as it completes.
Crawl configuration options
Both crawl paths share the same configuration options:
Select Target Platform
The platform the generated tests target. A live crawl always runs in a browser, so Web Application is the only available platform; Mobile and API are disabled.
Publish Mode
Require approval keeps generated tests in a draft state until you review them. Auto publish publishes them automatically after analysis.
Test case types
The types of test cases the AI generates — All Types, or any of Positive / Happy Path, Negative, Edge Cases, Field Level Validation, Boundary Value, Functional, and End to End. If you select none, the AI decides for you.
Prerequisites (optional)
Test cases that must run before every test case this crawl generates, for example "User is logged in." They do not replace the target URL, which the crawl always starts from.
Create Test Suite
Add the generated tests to a new suite, named in Test Suite Name.
Create Test Plan
Add the generated tests to a new plan, named in Test Plan Name, with an option to Execute Test Plan.
Write an AI-ready crawl goal
Describe the business outcome, important checkpoints, and stopping condition instead of listing brittle selectors. For example:
After generation, confirm that the scenario types shown on the generated rows match the types you selected. Review prerequisites separately from the newly generated positive, negative, edge, or validation cases; referenced prerequisites do not count as newly generated scenarios.
Crawl boundaries and authenticated applications
A crawl explores from the target URL in pursuit of the goal you provide. It does not guarantee discovery of every route, role, hidden state, or edge case, and it does not prove complete application coverage.
Keep the goal narrow enough to review and include a clear stopping condition.
Use a non-production environment and a dedicated test identity for authenticated flows.
Put passwords, tokens, and OTP seeds in Environment Password/Vault values or an approved runtime integration—never in the crawl goal, requirement text, or knowledge base.
Attach a validated login prerequisite when the crawl must begin in an authenticated state. A prerequisite does not bypass CAPTCHA, multi-factor authentication, or an external identity provider.
Confirm that redirects, popups, and any required external domain are reachable in the managed browser session.
Prefer Require approval for state-changing flows and review generated steps before publishing or executing them.
The generated cases are reviewable drafts of what the agent observed. Add scenarios for roles, data states, or routes the crawl could not reach, and verify that the tests do not create duplicate payments, messages, or production records.
Reading a crawl requirement
Open a crawl requirement to review what the crawl captured and generated. A crawl requirement is marked with an AI Insights badge and adds crawl-specific content to two tabs.
Metadata tab
The Metadata tab shows two sections for a crawl requirement:
Generation Information — the activity title and platform, plus capture stats drawn from the source activity: Console Errors, Steps Executed, Pages Visited, Test Cases, and Version.
Configurations — Publish Mode, Environment, Test Case Types, Test Suite, and Test Plan.
Requirement Data tab
The Requirement Data tab has two sub-tabs:
Sources & Context — traces the requirement back to the AI Insight and the activity it came from. A capture card shows the source Insight (as a link), when it was Generated, and the platform. A Captured activity entry lists when it was captured, its step count, its console error count, and its priority, with a What I considered note from the AI. If no source context exists, the tab shows "No source context."
AI Analysis — summarizes the generation pass, including AI Understanding, Assumptions Made, Coverage Notes, Warnings & Gaps, and a Confidence Score.
Summary
Crawling turns a live walkthrough of your application into test cases:
Start a crawl from an AI Insights activity or from a new requirement.
Configure the target, the task, the platform, and how the results are published.
Run the crawl in the background while the requirement fills in.
Review the crawl requirement's metadata, sources, and AI analysis.
Related pages
AI Insights — discover the activities users take and generate tests for the gaps
AI Test Generation — generate test cases from tickets, URLs, designs, and other sources
Requirements Coverage Gaps — find requirements that lack test coverage
Requirements management — review generated cases, variables, and approvals
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