Engineering guide

Use requirement diagrams to inspect relationships

A requirement diagram makes a particular set of recorded relationships visible. It is useful for asking questions about ownership and impact, provided its scope is clear.

Choose the diagram for the question

Question	Proof view
How are the configured specification levels arranged?	Hierarchy from the specification tree.
Which components are connected by declared interfaces?	Component dependency diagram.
What recorded relationships may be affected by a requirement change?	Requirement impact diagram.

These views answer different questions. A hierarchy of specification levels is not a drawing of every requirement-to-test link, and a component diagram is not a runtime network trace.

Generate the view from the current project

proof diagram hierarchy --format mermaid
proof diagram components --format mermaid
proof diagram impact SYS-REQ-042 --format mermaid

The commands emit raw Mermaid markup. Render it in a Mermaid-capable document or viewer. Preserve the project revision and relevant scope alongside a shared diagram so readers know which recorded state it depicts.

Use the picture to test a change hypothesis

Illustrative review. A system requirement changes duplicate handling. Its impact view reaches the importer and a checkpoint test, but no consumer-side integration requirement appears. Ask whether the consumer is unaffected, the boundary is out of scope, or a trace link is missing.

A missing edge is a review prompt, not proof that the dependency does not exist. Compare the diagram with known callers, configuration, data flow, and operational behavior. Record newly discovered relationships after verifying their meaning.

Similarly, many arrows do not show good decomposition. Read whether a child adds a concrete responsibility and whether the linked evidence actually observes it.

Keep diagrams connected to decisions

Use the diagram in a review brief together with the requirement text, changed artifacts, and evidence. When a parent is superseded, inspect the replacement links rather than retaining a visually tidy but stale hierarchy.

proof req show SYS-REQ-042 --with lineage,traces
proof review req SYS-REQ-042

The generated view cannot authorize a requirement change or prove that the code satisfies it. It also cannot discover every unrecorded dependency. Its value is making the current model easy to challenge and repair.

For a large graph, review one change boundary at a time and retain the surrounding context. A small diagram with a clear question often reveals more than an unreadable overview of the whole corpus.

Continue from here

Review the reach of a change. Check requirement-level structure.

Bring one requirement change and the relationships you need to inspect. Bring a change to Proof.