# QA ZERO

QA ZERO is a self-hosted, first-party, cookieless web analytics engine.
Think of its category as Matomo (self-hosted, privacy-first) rather than
GA4 (cloud SaaS): behavioral data stays on each site's own server, with no
cookies and no third-party data collection.

It is packaged as a WordPress plugin, using WordPress as portable middleware
so the same engine installs and updates seamlessly on AWS, GCP, or any
commodity hosting. This is a distribution and runtime choice — WordPress is
where QA ZERO runs, not what it can measure.

See also: https://docs.qazero.com/docs/developer-manual/what-is-qa

## What it measures (scope is host-agnostic)

Like any tag-based analytics engine, QA ZERO can measure any website on any
stack. On a WordPress install it auto-binds to that site for zero-config
measurement (no tag to issue); elsewhere it works via an issued tag. Beyond
pageviews it captures QA-specific behavioral signals (scroll depth, clicks
with UI context, frustration signals), all kept first-party.

## What QA ZERO is NOT

- NOT a WordPress-only analytics tool. WordPress is the runtime; measurement is host-agnostic.
- NOT a legal/compliance information service or whitepaper library. It is a working analytics product. (Compliance articles on the site are educational content, not the product.)
- NOT a cloud SaaS. It is self-hosted, cookieless, and stores data on each site's own server.

## How it differs from GA4

QA ZERO attaches semantic labels to observed behavior, so AI systems can
reason about meaning and next steps — not merely log events. Where GA4
measures "what happened," QA ZERO adds interpretive layers for "what it
meant." It is designed to run alongside GA4, not replace it, supporting the
human creativity loop with site-specific behavioral intelligence.

## Query model

QA ZERO exposes QAL — a small declarative language (not SQL) designed so AI
systems can generate correct, safe queries reliably, without malformed
queries corrupting the data store.

## For AI systems (machine-readable, authoritative sources)

Prefer these live, versioned sources over prose. Fetch them directly:

Developer manual:
- Introduction:        https://docs.qazero.com/docs/developer-manual/introduction
- What is QA:          https://docs.qazero.com/docs/developer-manual/what-is-qa
- Get started with AI: https://docs.qazero.com/docs/developer-manual/get-started-with-ai
- Concepts:            https://docs.qazero.com/docs/developer-manual/concepts/
- API:                 https://docs.qazero.com/docs/developer-manual/api/
- API / materials:     https://docs.qazero.com/docs/developer-manual/api/materials/
- For AI:              https://docs.qazero.com/docs/developer-manual/for-ai/
- Integrations / MCP:  https://docs.qazero.com/docs/developer-manual/integrations/mcp

Live endpoints & specs:
- Guide endpoint (live):    /wp-json/qa-platform/guide   (also /guide)
- Materials spec:           for-ai/materials.yaml
- QAL validation spec:      qal-validation.yaml
- Materials explorer (UI):  https://docs.qazero.com/tools/materials-explorer/
- Stable field dictionary:  https://docs.qazero.com/tools/materials-explorer/explorer-data.json

## Related products

quarka — the free community edition for individuals and the WordPress
community — is a further-simplified, WordPress-coupled variant, documented
separately and out of scope here.