5.3. Traceability of Specification Items — RTEMS Software Engineering 5.4-rc2 (21st August 2026) documentation

# 5.3. Traceability of Specification Items

The standard ECSS-E-ST-10-06C demands that requirements shall be under configuration management, backwards-traceable and forward-traceable [ECS09]. Requirements are a specialization of specification items in RTEMS.

## 5.3.1. History of Specification Items

The RTEMS specification items should placed in the RTEMS sources using Git for version control. The history of specification items can be traced with Git. Special commit procedures for changes in specification item files should be established. For example, it should be allowed to change only one specification item per commit. A dedicated Git commit message format may be used as well, e.g. use of `Approved-by:` or `Reviewed-by:` lines which indicate an agreed statement (similar to the Linux kernel patch submission guidelines). Git commit procedures may be ensured through a server-side pre-receive hook. The history of requirements may be also added to the specification items directly in a revision attribute. This would make it possible to generate the history information for documents without having the Git repository available, e.g. from an RTEMS source release archive.

## 5.3.2. Backward Traceability of Specification Items

Providing backward traceability of specification items means that we must be able to find the corresponding higher level specification item for each refined specification item. A custom tool needs to verify this.

## 5.3.3. Forward Traceability of Specification Items

Providing forward traceability of specification items means that we must be able to find all the refined specification items for each higher level specification item. A custom tool needs to verify this. The links from parent to child specification items are implicitly defined by links from a child item to a parent item.

## 5.3.4. Traceability between Software Requirements, Architecture and Design

The software requirements are implemented in custom YAML files, see Specification Items. The software architecture and design is written in Doxygen markup. Doxygen markup is used throughout all header and source files. A Doxygen filter program may be provided to place Doxygen markup in assembler files. The software architecture is documented via Doxygen groups. Each Doxygen group name should have a project-specific name and the name should be unique within the project, e.g. RTEMSTopLevelMidLevelLowLevel. The link from a Doxygen group to its parent group is realized through the `@ingroup` special command. The link from a Doxygen group or software component to the corresponding requirement is realized through a `@satisfy{req}` custom command which needs the identifier of the requirement as its one and only parameter. Only links to parents are explicitly given in the Doxygen markup. The links from a parent to its children are only implicitly specified via the link from a child to its parent. So, a tool must process all files to get the complete hierarchy of software requirements, architecture and design. Links from a software component to another software component are realized through automatic Doxygen references or the `@ref` and `@see` special commands.