How to Use QPad

When you first launch QPad, a default project is created automatically. You can configure it in Project Settings:

• Project name — The name of the app or product you're testing
• Version & build number — Track which version you're testing against
• Tester name — Your name, included in exported reports
• Git repository URL — Optional, for GitHub integration
• Access token — GitHub personal access token for private repos

You can create multiple projects to manage checklists for different products or releases.

QPad supports two import formats:

Markdown — Use standard Markdown structure:

# Checklist Title

## Section Name
- [ ] Test item one
- [ ] Test item two

## Another Section
- [ ] Another test item

JSON — Structured format with title, sections, and items arrays.

From GitHub — If you've connected a repository, you can browse and import checklist files directly from your repo.

From Files — Import from your local iPad files or iCloud Drive.

Templates — Save any checklist as a reusable template. Browse templates from the sidebar and start a new test cycle with one tap. Swipe to delete templates you no longer need.

Drag to reorder — Rearrange items within sections and reorder sections themselves via the toolbar reorder button.

Each checklist item has one of four statuses:

Quick tap — Tap an item to toggle between Pending and Pass.

Long press — Long-press for the full status menu (Pass, Fail, N/A, Pending).

Fail notes — When marking an item as Fail, you can add a description of what went wrong.

Tester attribution — QPad automatically captures who marked each item and when. Shows as "@name · 2 hours ago" below the item. Flows through all exports for full audit trails.

Undo/redo — Full undo/redo support for all status changes. Tester attribution is preserved correctly through undo.

When marking an item as Fail, classify the severity:

Severity tags appear as color-coded badges on failed items. They auto-clear when an item is un-failed, and flow through all exports — PDF, CSV, Markdown, and Slack notifications.

Photo attachments — Attach photos from your library to failed items. Screenshots, bug evidence, and visual context display as full-width thumbnails inline with your test results. Change or remove photos at any time.

Inline sketches — Tap the pencil icon on any checklist item to open the sketch canvas. Draw directly on a blank canvas or over a pasted screenshot.

Mark up bugs — Circle problem areas, draw arrows to highlight issues, add quick handwritten notes. Sketches attach directly to the checklist item they belong to.

Tools — Pen, marker, and eraser with adjustable color and stroke width. Supports pressure sensitivity and tilt for natural drawing.

Included in reports — Sketches are embedded in exported PDF reports. Photo-attached failures are marked with a camera icon in Markdown exports.

Works without Pencil too — No Apple Pencil? No problem. Finger drawing works the same way.

Search — Type in the search bar to filter items by title. Results update in real-time.

Status filters — Tap the filter chips (All, Pass, Fail, N/A, Pending) to show only items with that status. Filters combine with search.

Batch operations — Long-press a section header to open the context menu. You can mark all items in a section as Pass, Fail, N/A, or reset to Pending in one action.

Section collapsing — Tap a section header to collapse or expand it.

The dashboard gives you an at-a-glance view of your testing progress:

• Overview cards — Total Pass, Fail, N/A, and Pending counts across all active checklists
• Status donut chart — Visual breakdown of test results
• Progress bars — Per-checklist completion percentage with per-section drill-down
• Failures tab — Consolidated list of all failed items with severity tags and fail notes

AI Summary tab (iOS 26+) — Fetches the automated test summary from your repo (generated by QPilot), lets you add manual testing context, then uses Apple Intelligence to merge both into a polished 2-3 paragraph QA narrative. The final summary is editable and shareable. All AI processing runs on-device — your data stays on your iPad.

Connect QPad to a GitHub repository to streamline your workflow:

Import from repo — Browse and import checklist files directly from your repository.

Structured commits — QPad uses conventional commit format for progress and close pushes. Progress commits include completion percentage; close commits include the final verdict (PASS/FAIL/PARTIAL) with counts. All commits tagged with [skip ci].

Version diffing — Before each push, QPad fetches the remote progress file and compares old vs new state. Only changed items appear in the commit message body, and a "Changes Since Last Push" section is added to the companion markdown.

Device & OS tagging — QPad auto-captures your device name and iOS version when creating a checklist. These appear in all exports and GitHub pushes for reproducibility.

Create GitHub Issues — Tap "Create Issue" on any failed item to open a GitHub Issue pre-populated with the checklist name, version, build, device/OS, severity, and failure notes. Once created, the button switches to "View Issue" with a direct link.

Offline push queue — If you're offline when pushing, QPad queues the push and automatically drains the queue when connectivity returns. The queue persists across app restarts.

To set up, add your repo URL and a GitHub personal access token (with repo scope) in Project Settings.

Configure a Slack webhook URL in Settings and QPad posts a rich summary to your channel when you close a checklist. The message includes:

• Status emoji and overall verdict (Pass/Fail/Partial)
• Pass/fail/N/A counts with tester name
• Failure list with severity emoji prefixes

Your team sees exactly what passed and what failed without leaving Slack.

QPad generates professional test reports in multiple formats:

PDF report — Includes project metadata (name, version, build, tester, device/OS), section-by-section breakdown with color-coded status badges, severity tags, and a failure summary.

CSV export — Structured data with headers (Project, Version, Build, Tester, Checklist, Dates) and per-item status, notes, severity, and tester attribution.

Markdown report — Companion markdown pushed alongside JSON progress to GitHub, with tester mentions, severity emoji, and per-section breakdowns.

Backup & Restore — Export your entire project to a .qpad archive file. Includes all checklists, sections, items, statuses, notes, severity tags, tester data, drawings, and photos. Import a .qpad file on any device to restore without overwriting existing data.

QPad uses CloudKit to sync your data across all your devices. Start testing on iPad, review on iPhone — your checklists, progress, and results stay in sync automatically.

If iCloud is unavailable, QPad falls back to local-only storage gracefully. No data is lost — sync resumes when iCloud becomes available again.

QPad connects to QPilot through your GitHub repository to bridge automated and manual testing:

Auto-pull test results — QPad pulls automated test results that QPilot pushes to your repo. No manual import needed.

Fuzzy matching — Failing tests are automatically linked to your checklist items. QPad normalizes camelCase test names (e.g., testLoginWithInvalidCredentials matches "login with invalid credentials") so you see failures right where they matter.

Inline failure cards — Each matched failure shows the test suite, test name, and error message directly in the checklist row.

Push notifications — QPad alerts you when new test failures arrive or when the failure count worsens. The app icon badge shows the current failure count.

With a hardware keyboard connected, you can fly through checklist items without touching the screen:

Navigate to the target item and press the key — no tapping or long-pressing required.

After closing a test, QPad archives the checklist with all its results. View past QA runs at any time:

• Per-run details — View all items and their final status, notes, and sketches
• Failure history — Items that were ever marked as Fail are tracked separately from currently open failures, giving you a full audit trail
• Export from history — Generate PDF or CSV reports from any archived run

When you've finished testing, use the Close Test flow:

1. Review the summary — total pass/fail/N/A counts per section
2. Review all failed items and their notes
3. Optionally push results to GitHub
4. Record the tester name and close timestamp

Closed checklists are archived and can be reviewed later but not modified.