Product delivery guide

Acceptance Criteria Examples: Given, When, Then + Checklist (2026)

Acceptance criteria make a story testable. Use them to show what success, failure, and important edge cases look like before a team starts building.

Create user stories and acceptance criteria with AI

The practical workflow

  1. 1. State the outcome. Write the user story without prescribing the solution.
  2. 2. Cover the happy path. Describe what success looks like.
  3. 3. Add failures. Capture invalid input, permissions, and errors.
  4. 4. Flag assumptions. Keep unknown rules visible for the team to confirm.

Given, When, Then acceptance criteria example

Use this format when a QA engineer or developer should be able to turn each criterion into a test.

Story: sign in with email and password

User story: As a returning customer, I want to sign in with my email and password so that I can access my account.

Happy path

Given I am on the sign-in page

When I enter a registered email and valid password

Then I am taken to my account dashboard.

Negative path

Given I am on the sign-in page

When I enter an incorrect password

Then I see a clear error message and remain on the sign-in page.

Acceptance-criteria checklist example

A checklist is useful when the team needs a compact list of verifiable rules rather than scenario-by-scenario behavior.

Story: save a payment method

  • • A customer can save a valid payment method from checkout.
  • • The payment method is available on a later checkout for the same account.
  • • Invalid payment details show a useful error and are not saved.
  • • A customer can remove a saved payment method.
  • • Assumption to confirm: whether at least one payment method must remain on file.

What to include beyond the happy path

Negative cases

Missing fields, invalid formats, failed requests, and permission errors.

Edge cases

Empty states, duplicate actions, limits, timeouts, and concurrent changes.

Assumptions

Business rules the team still needs to decide before implementation.

Start with your feature brief

Describe the user, desired outcome, happy path, and constraints. The generator creates a review-ready starting point; your team should validate the product rules before shipping.

Generate acceptance criteria