Section 078 · Chapter 10, Anti-Patterns That Create False Confidence

Anti-Patterns: The Static Test Plan

A frozen test plan can look responsible while the AI system keeps changing underneath it.

retrievalstatic test plan

What to do

  1. Define runnable checks that exercise retrieval and static test plan.
  2. Set acceptable outcomes and blocker failures for retrieval and static test plan before running the evaluation.
  3. Run representative cases for retrieval and static test plan and preserve the failures that would change the decision.

Evidence to preserve

  • Preserve the inputs, versions, configurations, raw outcomes, and results for retrieval, static test plan needed to reproduce work on Anti-Patterns: The Static Test Plan.
  • Report results for retrieval, static test plan by relevant slice, separate blocker failures from averages, state uncertainty and blind spots, and connect the result to a release decision.

Expert note

The deeper move is to maintain a living quality system: versioned evals, changelogs, production trace mining, drift monitors, rubric updates, and explicit compatibility rules for trend comparisons.

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Cite this page

Jason Arbon. "Anti-Patterns: The Static Test Plan." Testing AI Knowledge Edition, section 78.

https://jarbon.ai/testing-ai/knowledge/ch078-static-test-plan.html

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