Skip to content

Human-in-the-Loop Control

Autonomy when you want it. Control when you need it

SmartBear BearQ™ gives teams flexible control over how autonomous testing runs. Let agents explore, validate, and report on their own, or guide their work with human review, approval, and oversight where it matters most.

Start Free Trial

The challenge

Autonomous AI is only as useful as it is trustworthy.

Autonomy demands confidenceTasking an AI system with testing requires confidence: confidence that it's exploring the right area and not running tests it shouldn't, and confidence that the team stays informed and in control.Trust is earned over timeThat confidence is earned over time, and the path to greater testing autonomy looks different for every team. BearQ supports you across that spectrum, from human-guided workflows to more autonomous testing.

Human in the loop

HOW BEARQ WORKS

You define how much autonomy BearQ operates with.

BearQ's operating model is configurable. Teams set the guardrails that define where BearQ explores, what it executes, and what requires human review. Teams can adjust those guardrails over time as confidence grows.

Fully autonomous mode
In this mode, BearQ explores, generates tests, executes validation, and produces full audit logs without waiting for human review, based on human-defined priorities. Defects are surfaced, coverage grows, and your team stays informed without needing to be involved in every action.
End-to-end autonomous execution Continuous coverage Daily summary reporting
Human-directed mode
Operating this way, your team triggers BearQ's actions, then reviews and approves BearQ's proposals before finalizing. Tests are proposed before they're added as regression tests. BearQ explores on-demand, per instructions.
Approval gates Team review of scenarios Scoped exploration boundaries Audit trail for every action
Guardrails & boundaries
BearQ offers guardrails where you can define what BearQ can and cannot explore, set resource limits, and restrict testing to specific areas of the application. Guardrails give teams control without requiring constant supervision.
Area & workflow scope limits Resource usage controls Time-bounded exploration Exclusion rules
Enterprise governance
For organizations with compliance, security, or audit requirements, BearQ's governance controls provide the documentation, traceability, and approval structure needed to operate at AI speed and scale.
Documented approval workflows Audit trail & traceability Role-based access controls Compliance-ready reporting

IN PRACTICE

What the first 3 months of BearQ adoption looks like

  1. In their first week, the team configures BearQ in human-directed mode. Every proposed test is reviewed and approved before being added to the regression suite.
  2. After reviewing BearQ's output and building confidence, by week three the team opens a second application area for autonomous exploration.
  3. By their second month, autonomous execution is enabled for regression validation. Human review is retained for new feature coverage.
  4. In their third month using BearQ, the team transitions to fully autonomous regression testing and newly explored workflows, with governance reporting for regular review.

Frequently asked questions

Start with control. Scale into autonomy.

Try BearQ and see how your team can guide exploration, review proposed tests, and expand autonomous validation as trust grows.

Start Free Trial