Getting started
Core concepts
The vocabulary that shows up across every page in the app.
Projects
The top-level container. Everything else (suites, runs, bugs, reports) belongs to a project. A project can carry a Jira project key so generated test cases and pushed bugs link to the right place automatically, and (for workspace owners) has its own team member list independent of who has access to the rest of the workspace. See Roles & permissions.
Suites
A suite is a set of test cases, usually mapped to one feature, ticket, or PRD. Suites carry an environment tag (Development, Production, or others you define) and can be created three ways: generated by AI, recorded from a live click-through, or built by hand. The Suites page lists all of them across projects, with pass/fail counts from their latest run.
Runs: three kinds
A run is one execution of a suite. TestCatalyst has three distinct run types, and it's worth knowing which is which:
| Type | Driven by | Where results live |
|---|---|---|
| Scripted / agentic run | TestCatalyst's own execution engine (Playwright, with an AI tool-calling loop for agentic runs) | Runs |
| MCP run | Any MCP-capable agent (Claude Desktop, Claude Code) calling TestCatalyst's MCP server, paired with a browser tool | MCP Runs, with a live streaming view |
| Manual | A person, working through a suite by hand | The suite's own page |
All three feed the same test case history. A case's pass/fail status doesn't care which method last exercised it.
Bugs
A bug sheet groups related bugs for a project. Bug sheets are created automatically the first time a run has a failure, or manually / by import. Individual bugs carry severity, priority, status, and attachments, and can be pushed as a parent issue with each bug as a Jira subtask (or a Trello checklist item): one action, not one per bug. A bug linked to a test case (mention its ID, e.g. TC-142) auto-resolves the next time that case passes, on any tracker.
CATS (screen recordings)
"CAT" is TestCatalyst's bundled Chrome extension (Screen Recorder), not an acronym. It captures tab, window, or full-screen video and uploads it automatically. The CATS page is the searchable library of everything it's captured, whether from the extension, a manual upload, or automatically from an MCP agent run. Recordings show up both in that library and on the specific run or bug they document.
Reports
A generated document summarizing a run or suite. Four types exist (Comprehensive, Exploratory, Regression, API Test), each customizable via a Report Template. Delivered by download (PDF), email, or Confluence export, and carrying your workspace's branding. Separate from this: structured .xlsx export templates for teams that need exports to match an existing spreadsheet format exactly. See Reports & exports.
Client Issues
A separate log from QA-found bugs, for issues reported by clients or end-users, with optional sync to Zoho Projects. Kept apart from Bugs deliberately: one is what QA found before release, the other is what a real user hit after.