- CTFL-AT (Certified Tester Foundation Level Agile Tester) is the agile extension of ISTQB Foundation Level: it validates that you can work as a tester inside an agile team.
- The prerequisite is ISTQB Foundation Level (CTFL), any version.
- The syllabus (2014) has 3 chapters and 735 minutes of minimum training; almost two thirds is agile testing methods, techniques and tools.
- The exam has 40 questions, lasts 60 minutes (75 if it is not your native language) and the pass mark is 26 (65%).
- It is being retired: the English exam is available until May 6, 2027, and non-English exams (including Spanish) until November 6, 2027. Certificates already issued remain valid for life.
- Its successor is CTAL-AT v2.0, an Advanced Level certification; they are not the same exam.
- Prepare with our ISTQB Agile Tester course: 24 live hours on Teams.
Today almost every software team works with Scrum, Kanban or some mix of both. In that world, the tester is no longer the person who receives a build at the end to "test it": they join refinement, write acceptance criteria with the Product Owner, automate with developers and explore the product every sprint.
The ISTQB Agile Tester (CTFL-AT) certification brings structure to all of that. In this guide I explain what it is, who it is for, what the syllabus covers chapter by chapter, what the exam looks like, what its retirement means and how it relates to the new CTAL-AT v2.0.
What CTFL-AT is and where it sits in the ISTQB portfolio
CTFL-AT is the agile extension of Foundation Level. It was released in 2014, when the Foundation syllabus was still mostly geared to sequential models, and it filled that gap: how to test in an agile team, how the tester's role changes, and which techniques and tools are used.
It holds a special place in today's portfolio. Since 2023, CTFL 4.0 already includes the agile basics (whole team, pyramid, quadrants, retrospectives, ATDD). That is why in May 2026 ISTQB released CTAL-AT v2.0 (Advanced Level Agile Tester) as the evolution of CTFL-AT, with a more strategic, advanced-level focus.
- Exams and training in English: available until May 6, 2027, including retakes.
- Exams and training in Spanish and other non-English languages: until November 6, 2027.
- Certificates already issued remain valid. There is no automatic transition to CTAL-AT: if you want the new certification, you must pass its exam.
Is it worth getting a certification that is being retired? Often, yes. It has more than ten years of recognition, job postings and corporate clients still ask for it, the exam is more accessible than an Advanced Level one and the certificate never expires. Just make sure you sit the exam before the deadline. For the full portfolio and costs in your currency, see our ISTQB certification guide.
Who it is for and prerequisites
CTFL-AT is for anyone who tests or contributes to quality in an agile environment:
- Testers and QA analysts coming from traditional projects who now sit in a Scrum team.
- Testers already working in agile who want to formalize what they do with an international standard.
- Developers, Scrum Masters, Product Owners and business analysts who want to understand what testers bring and how to collaborate better.
- QA leads who need a common framework for a team moving to agile.
Formal prerequisite: the ISTQB Foundation Level (CTFL) certification, any version. If you don't have it yet, start with our ISTQB Foundation Level 4.0 course; you can bundle both with 50% off the second course. You don't need to code, although it helps to understand what a unit test and a continuous integration pipeline are.
What you will be able to do: business outcomes
The official Foundation Level Agile Tester Overview document defines these business outcomes for a certified person:
| Code | A certified Agile Tester can... |
|---|---|
| FA-BO1 | Collaborate in a cross-functional agile team, being familiar with the principles and basic practices of agile development |
| FA-BO2 | Adapt existing testing experience and knowledge to agile values and principles |
| FA-BO3 | Support the agile team in planning test-related activities |
| FA-BO4 | Apply relevant methods and techniques for testing in an agile project |
| FA-BO5 | Assist the agile team in test automation activities |
| FA-BO6 | Help business stakeholders define understandable and testable user stories, scenarios, requirements and acceptance criteria |
| FA-BO7 | Work and share information with other team members using effective communication styles and channels |
The learning objectives go up to K3 (apply). The K3 objectives matter most in practice and on the exam: writing testable user stories, applying techniques in agile projects, assessing quality risks, estimating test effort and applying ATDD.
Syllabus content chapter by chapter
| Chapter | Minimum time | Key topics |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Agile Software Development | 150 min | Agile Manifesto, whole team, early feedback, XP, Scrum, Kanban, user stories, retrospectives, continuous integration, release and iteration planning |
| 2. Fundamental Agile Testing Principles, Practices and Processes | 105 min | Differences from traditional testing, work products, test levels, configuration management, independence, test status, regression risk, role and skills of an agile tester |
| 3. Agile Testing Methods, Techniques and Tools | 480 min | TDD, ATDD, BDD, pyramid, quadrants, quality risk assessment, estimation, acceptance criteria, exploratory testing, tools |
That adds up to 735 minutes (12 h 15 min) of minimum training. Our course runs 24 hours because we use the extra time for hands-on exercises and mock exams.
Chapter 1. Agile Software Development
It starts with the Agile Manifesto and its four values: individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and responding to change over following a plan. Careful: the manifesto does not say the items on the right have no value, only that the items on the left are valued more. That is a classic exam question.
The syllabus also reviews the manifesto's twelve principles. The ones with the biggest impact on testers are: satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software, welcome changing requirements even late, deliver working software frequently, business people and developers working together daily, face-to-face conversation as the most efficient way to communicate, working software as the primary measure of progress, and regular team reflection to improve.
Next it explains the whole-team approach: everyone with the necessary skills, co-located physically or virtually, sharing responsibility for quality. One example is the "three amigos" meeting, where business, development and testing review a story together before it is built. It also highlights the value of early and frequent feedback: the customer sees working software every iteration, requirement misunderstandings surface sooner and the team can adjust priorities with real information.
It then describes three agile approaches:
- Extreme Programming (XP): values, principles and practices such as pair programming, continuous integration, incremental design and test-first programming.
- Scrum: sprints, product backlog, sprint backlog, increment, Definition of Done, time-boxing, transparency and three roles: Scrum Master, Product Owner and development team. Scrum does not define a tester role; the tester is part of the team.
- Kanban: the board, work-in-progress (WIP) limits and continuous flow, without mandatory iterations.
The K3 part of the chapter is collaborative user story creation. It uses the 3 Cs (card, conversation, confirmation) and INVEST (independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, small, testable). Example: "As a customer, I want to reset my password by email so I can get back into my account." The tester brings questions such as: how long is the link valid? What happens if the email is not registered? Can the link be used twice? Those answers become acceptance criteria.
It closes with retrospectives (what went well, what to improve and how, including test improvements), continuous integration (build, static analysis, automated tests and deployment on every change, with its benefits and risks) and the difference between release planning (several iterations ahead) and iteration planning (one sprint), with the tester's contribution to each: testable stories and acceptance criteria, risk analysis, test effort estimates and release-level test planning.
Chapter 2. Fundamental Agile Testing Principles, Practices and Processes
This chapter compares testing in traditional and agile approaches. In agile, testing and development happen in parallel within each iteration; testers and developers work together, and automation is essential to keep up. Work products change: less formal documentation and more lightweight artifacts such as stories, acceptance criteria, exploratory charters and automated tests.
It also explains how test levels look within an iteration, the role of configuration management and continuous integration tools, and the organizational options for independent testing: testers embedded in the team, a separate test team for system or non-functional testing at the end, or a mix. The risk of fully embedding testers is losing independence and adopting the developer's point of view; the syllabus suggests balancing both.
A very practical section covers how to communicate test status: task boards, burndown charts, daily stand-ups and wikis. The key measure in agile is whether stories meet their Definition of Done and whether the increment is ready to ship.
Another covers managing regression risk: every sprint adds features and changes existing ones, so the regression suite grows. The syllabus recommends keeping manual and automated tests alive (update, retire, consolidate), automating at several levels and running regression as part of continuous integration.
It ends with the role and skills of an agile tester: positive and solution-oriented, critical and skeptical thinking, actively seeking feedback, communicating clearly, collaborating with the team and understanding the business. Typical activities include making sure the team understands the test strategy, supporting automation, reporting defects, coaching others on testing and taking part in retrospectives.
Chapter 3. Agile Testing Methods, Techniques and Tools
This is the core chapter: 480 minutes and 15 of the 40 questions, 7 of them K3. It has four parts.
Agile testing methods. It explains TDD (write the unit test, see it fail, write the minimum code, refactor), ATDD (define acceptance tests with the business before development) and BDD (Given/When/Then scenarios everyone can read and that can be automated). It presents the test pyramid (many fast unit tests at the bottom, few UI tests at the top) and Brian Marick's testing quadrants:
| Quadrant | Orientation | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 | Technology-facing, supports the team | Automated unit and component tests |
| Q2 | Business-facing, supports the team | Functional tests, examples, story tests, prototypes |
| Q3 | Business-facing, critiques the product | Exploratory, usability, user acceptance testing |
| Q4 | Technology-facing, critiques the product | Performance, load, security, reliability |
It also describes the tester's role in sprint zero (setting up environments, tools and strategy), in integration and in planning, plus practices such as pairing, incremental test design and mind mapping.
Quality risk assessment and estimation. During iteration planning, the team identifies quality risks per story, assesses likelihood and impact and decides how deeply to test. Example: in a payments story, the risk "double charge" is high in both likelihood and impact, so it deserves detailed, automated and exploratory acceptance tests; "the button label is hard to read in dark mode" is low impact and a quick check is enough. Effort is then estimated based on content and risk, using techniques such as planning poker, where the tester brings the cost-of-testing perspective.
Techniques in agile projects. How to derive tests from acceptance criteria and other information (functionality, interfaces, constraints, data), what adequate coverage means at each level, how to apply ATDD step by step (K3) and how to use functional and non-functional black-box techniques, such as equivalence partitioning and boundary values, on user stories.
An ATDD example for the password reset story. Criterion: "the link expires after 24 hours." Before any code is written, the team agrees on the tests: the link works at 23 h 59 min; it stops working at 24 h 01 min; a second use of the same link shows a clear message; an unregistered email gets the same generic message as a registered one (so the system does not reveal which accounts exist). These tests are written in business language, automated and become the living definition of "done."
This is also where session-based exploratory testing lives: a charter defines the objective, scope, data and actors; a session is an uninterrupted block of 60 to 120 minutes; and it ends with a debrief of the findings. Sample charter: "Explore the shopping cart with stacked coupons to discover discount calculation errors."
Tools in agile projects. Task management and tracking (boards such as Jira), communication and information sharing (wikis, chat, messaging), build and distribution (continuous integration), configuration management (version control), test design, implementation and execution (including mind-mapping and automation tools), and cloud computing and virtualization to spin up environments quickly.
Download the official syllabus
Everything in chapters 1 to 3 is examinable. Read the whole syllabus and review each chapter's keywords.
The CTFL-AT exam
Verified structure
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Questions | 40 multiple-choice, 1 point each |
| Pass mark | 26 points (65%) |
| Duration | 60 minutes; 75 if you take it in a language that is not your native one (+25%) |
| Distribution | Chapter 1: 13 questions · Chapter 2: 12 · Chapter 3: 15 |
| Cognitive levels | 10 K1, 22 K2 and 8 K3 questions |
| Prerequisite | ISTQB Foundation Level (CTFL) |
| Available until | May 6, 2027 in English; November 6, 2027 in other languages |
Sources: ISTQB official exam structure tables, iSQI and ISTQB's CTAL-AT v2.0 announcement.
Exam options
- Online from home with remote proctoring (iSQI FLEX): available 24/7; book at least 2 hours ahead. You need a webcam, a microphone, a second camera using your phone and a government-issued ID.
- Pearson VUE: at a test center or online with OnVUE.
- On-site at your company: for groups of 6 or more, Cool Testers brings a proctor.
Paper-based exams are no longer offered. If you take the exam in a language that is not your native one, you get 25% extra time.
Where to buy it
The exam is not included in the course. You have two options:
- Directly from iSQI, our partner and official exam provider, with a 20% coupon off the price on their site for your first attempt, which we send when you enroll. Best if you are paying yourself.
- Through Cool Testers: our certification exam with 1 or 2 attempts. A good fit if your company pays or you need an invoice. You have 1 year to take it, always before the retirement date.
How to prepare
4-week plan
| Week | What to study | Goal |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chapter 1 | Explain agile values and principles, Scrum, XP and Kanban; write 5 stories with acceptance criteria |
| 2 | Chapter 2 | Compare traditional and agile testing; explain regression management and status reporting |
| 3 | Chapter 3 | Quadrants, pyramid, ATDD step by step, quality risks, planning poker, exploratory charters |
| 4 | Review and mock exams | At least 2 full mock exams at 80% or higher; review keywords |
Common mistakes
- Answering based on how your company "does agile." The exam follows the syllabus and the Manifesto, not local adaptations.
- Mixing up the quadrants. Memorize the two axes: technology vs. business, and supporting the team vs. critiquing the product.
- Underestimating chapter 3. It has 15 questions and most of the K3 ones.
- Putting the exam off. With the retirement date coming, book it as soon as you finish the course; in English the deadline is May 2027.
Our ISTQB Agile Tester course
Our ISTQB Agile Tester course prepares you for CTFL-AT. It is 24 live hours on Microsoft Teams on Saturdays with Miguel Hernández, with exercises on user stories, ATDD, estimation and exploratory testing. You keep the recordings for 3 years and can retake the course for free in any open group within the following 6 months. In open groups you can pay in installments (50% today plus 3 biweekly payments, with a 10% financing fee), and two people enrolling together get 10% off.
If you don't have Foundation yet, ask about the Foundation + Agile Tester bundle with 50% off the second course. Questions? Message us on WhatsApp.
Benefits and career paths
- Fits how teams work today: most QA roles are in agile teams, and this certification shows you can operate in them.
- More value in refinement: you learn to improve stories and acceptance criteria before code is written, where testers add the most value.
- Better collaboration with developers: you understand TDD, BDD and continuous integration and speak the developers' language.
- Lifetime certificate: even after the exam is retired, your certificate remains valid and recognized.
- For companies: a team moving to Scrum adopts shared testing practices. We deliver the course for your company; request a quote.
Typical roles: QA tester in a Scrum team, agile quality analyst, acceptance tester, QA lead for an agile squad and, with programming skills, automation engineer in continuous delivery teams.
How it relates to other certifications and what comes next
- Before: CTFL 4.0, mandatory.
- Successor: CTAL-AT v2.0, the Advanced Level Agile Tester, with K4 objectives on strategy, process improvement and techniques such as example mapping and test tours.
- Agile leadership: Agile Test Leadership at Scale (CT-ATLaS) if you lead quality across several squads or an agile transformation.
- Management: Test Management (CTAL-TM), which covers test management in agile and hybrid models.
- Automation and DevOps: CTAL-TAE and Quality in DevOps (CT-QDO).
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between CTFL-AT and CTAL-AT?
CTFL-AT is the Foundation Level agile extension (2014) and goes up to K3. CTAL-AT v2.0 is an Advanced Level certification (2026), includes K4 objectives and focuses on strategy, process improvement and advanced techniques. They are different exams, and holding CTFL-AT does not give you CTAL-AT.
Until when can I take the CTFL-AT exam?
In English, until May 6, 2027. In Spanish and other non-English languages, until November 6, 2027. Retakes are included in those dates.
Will my CTFL-AT certificate lose validity when it is retired?
No. Issued certificates remain valid for life. What is retired is the ability to take the exam.
Do I need Foundation to take Agile Tester?
Yes. The prerequisite is the ISTQB Foundation Level (CTFL) certification, any version.
How many questions does the CTFL-AT exam have?
40 multiple-choice questions worth 1 point each. You pass with 26 (65%). You have 60 minutes, or 75 if you are not taking it in your native language.
Do I need to know how to code?
No. It helps to understand unit tests, TDD and continuous integration, but the syllabus does not require programming.
Is the exam included in the course?
No. You can buy it directly from iSQI with the 20% coupon we send when you enroll, or through Cool Testers if your company pays or you need an invoice.