Topic · Preliminary design review

What is a preliminary design review, and how do I keep it true in CI?

Gist

A preliminary design review is a NASA lifecycle gate: architecture and interfaces, judged before detailed design. Proof assesses that gate from the current graph with proof gate pdr, then fails the merge when a criterion is not ready.

proof gate pdr

Keep Jama if you author the programme. Keep the review board if you need a human to accept the architecture. Proof is not that meeting, and a printed SDD is not a PDR.

Request demo Last minutes vs this graph

01 · The dated minutes

An SDD is not a PDR. Last review's minutes are not this push.

The review board looks at architecture, interfaces, and whether the design can satisfy the shalls. A person can sign that once. The next commit does not reopen the room.

The design document lives on software design document. NASA's procedure lives on NPR 7150.2D. Software assurance lives on NASA-STD-8739.8. This page is the gate: srr, pdr, cdr, trr, sar from the graph you already keep.

PDR looks at whether the SDD still generates, whether interfaces are documented, whether the architecture is complete, and whether circular dependencies are gone. It does not invent a component you did not declare. It does not sit in the review.

proof doc generate sdd --output docs/sdd.html
proof gate pdr
proof audit --fail-level warn

The first command prints the design pack from the current traces. The second assesses the PDR criteria and exits 0 (ready), 1 (not ready), or 2 (ready with observations). The third is the standing merge gate. Generating the SDD after the gate is how last review's pack got stale.

02 · The exhibit

Same agenda. A date, or this graph.

The minutes still have architecture headings. The graph moved. Click the tabs.

Word / Confluence

Opened architecture from last PDR
rate_limiter still in section 3

Agenda present

This push

The interface changed. The minutes did not.

No re-assess

Word / Confluence

Still last PDR. Still a date.

Keep the review minutes

Proof

Ask does pdr still pass
Exit 1 if a criterion fails

Merge blocked if the gate is not ready

Same agenda. A date, or this graph. Click the tabs.

Gate	Command	What it notices	What it does not
SRR	`proof gate srr`	Requirements exist, validated, linked, gaps clean	Does not write the shall. Jama still authors.
PDR	`proof gate pdr`	SDD generates, interfaces documented, architecture complete, no circular deps	Does not sit in the review. Does not invent a component.
CDR	`proof gate cdr`	Code annotated, autolink clean, build passes, orphan code clean	Does not replace a detailed design review.
TRR	`proof gate trr`	Tests, coverage, MC/DC, fixtures, Z3, suspect links	Does not run the test campaign for you. Keep `go test`.
SAR	`proof gate sar --output sas.html`	All of the above, plus SRS generate and documentation coverage. Writes the SAS.	`sas` is not in `proof doc list-templates`. Only the SAR gate has that pack.

Formats for the assessment itself:

proof gate pdr
proof gate pdr --format json
proof gate pdr --format markdown
proof gate sar --output sas.html

Table is the default. JSON is for CI. Markdown is for a comment. The Software Accomplishment Summary is produced only at SAR, from gate-criteria data the generic proof doc generate path cannot supply. That is why SAS is not advertised as a template.

We have not run these gates against a frozen NASA review-board corpus, and we have not scored them against a DER pack on the same branch. The loss is named, not scored.

03 · The honest loss

A green Proof gate is not a design review.

The command reports criteria on the authored model. Proof will not pretend that exit 0 is a board signature.

NPR 7150.2D still wants a human to judge whether the design satisfies the software requirements. The gate lists what you declared: SDD generation, interfaces, architecture, circular deps. It does not independently prove those declarations are the right decomposition. Keep the PDR. Keep the minutes.

Proof is not NASA. It is not OSMA IV&V. It is not DO-330 qualified. Tests are not executed by proof gate pdr. Keep go test. Jama still authors the shall. VectorCAST or LDRA still win at a qualified C toolchain.

The SDD artefact still lives on software design document. The NASA SRS still lives on NPR 7150.2D. The four jobs still live on DO-178C-style verification.

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04 · Nearby questions

What people type next.

What is a system requirements review? SRR is the first gate. Same family, same URL. proof gate srr.

What is a critical design review? CDR is detailed design against the code annotations. Same family. proof gate cdr. Do not mint a twin.

What is a test readiness review? TRR is tests, coverage, MC/DC, proofs. proof gate trr. Same URL.

What is a software accomplishment summary? The SAR pack. Only proof gate sar --output sas.html writes it. Not a proof doc generate template.

What is a software design document? The artefact PDR reads. software design document.

What is NPR 7150.2D? NASA's software engineering procedure. The SRS artefact lives on that URL. This page is the lifecycle gate, not a twin.

What is ISO 12207? A software lifecycle process standard. Proof has no ISO 12207 template. The NASA gates on this URL are the product surface.