The pre-render template QA checklist

The pre-render template QA checklist

A broken template renders the bug 50,000 times. QA the template on edge-case rows, not the happy path.

Pull these test rows and render each one:

☐ Longest entity name — does it break the H1, title length, or layout?
☐ Shortest / single-word name — does the title read naturally?
☐ Row with every optional field null — no empty headers, no "undefined", no dangling commas
☐ Row with special characters (ampersand, quote, non-Latin) — slug and meta escape cleanly
☐ Row with a number-heavy value — no "$0" or "0 reviews" shown as if meaningful
☐ Row at the staleness ceiling — degraded value renders, not a stale one
☐ Duplicate-name row — disambiguation fires

Gate: every test row must produce a valid, non-embarrassing page with correct title, meta description, H1, and canonical.

Guardrail: the null-field row is the one that ships "Best in for 2026" with a missing variable. Test it first.

Ship gate: don't ship the template until all seven edge rows pass.