Rules on Specification level

Specification contents is, with some exceptions, defined as everything except requirements. It is meta information found in the beginning of the document, plain text paragraphs and headings, rationales, examples, appendixes and references. The User has some possibility to define what is treated as Specification contents and what is treated as requirements contents during the analysis phase.

Rules on Specification level apply to the following elements in the XML document:

  • Paragraphs (plain text)
  • Headings
  • Lists and captions in paragraphs
  • Rationales
  • Lists and captions in rationales
  • Examples
  • Lists and captions in examples
  • Title, subtitle, classification, and copyright texts
  • Definitions, abbreviations, actors, and references

Depending on which rules are activated, the application analyses different parts of the Specification. If some contents fail to comply with a rule, one or more issues are generated. An issue can be minor or serious. Most serious issues ought to be corrected before the Specification is released, while it may be difficult to correct all minor issues. It is the responsibility of the Authors and people in Quality Assurance to decide which issues must be corrected.

Some rules displayed in Navigate > Grammar are applied when the corresponding requirements rules are active. The same rules are applied to contents at Specification level as well as contents on requirement level.

Related Topics

Specification structure

Specification grammar

Specification content

Contents