Cairn Documentation

Verification & Traceability

Verification confirms that your system meets its requirements. Traceability connects everything — requirements to nodes, verifications to requirements, decisions to rationale.

Verification Methods

Four standard methods:

Test: Physical or functional testing that measures performance.

"Conduct range test: drive vehicle until battery depletes, measure total distance traveled."

Analysis: Calculation or simulation that demonstrates compliance.

"Power budget analysis shows 18% margin under worst-case assumptions."

Demonstration: Operational exercise that shows capability.

"Demonstrate successful delivery sequence with live operator monitoring."

Inspection: Visual or physical examination.

"Inspect connector pinout against ICD; verify thermal compound application."

Verification Titles

Beyond the method and description, every verification carries a short title — the line that appears in the Inspector heading and in cascade previews when you delete the requirement it verifies. AI-generated verifications come with a title by default; rewrite it in the Inspector at any time.

Coverage Metrics

The Verification lens shows: what percentage of requirements have verification records, what percentage have passing status, and which requirements have no verification plan. Coverage can be scoped to the selected node alone or rolled up across its full subtree.

Trace Links

Trace links connect entities across your model:

satisfies: A design element satisfies a requirement
verifies: A verification record verifies a requirement
derives: A child requirement derives from a parent
depends_on: One node depends on another

The Traceability tool shows a matrix view with gaps immediately visible — requirements with no verifications, nodes with no requirements, orphaned verifications.

Impact Analysis

Trace links enable impact analysis: "If I change this requirement, what's affected?" The Traceability tool highlights the impact chain when you select any entity.

This is a core advantage of connected models over disconnected documents. When everything links to everything else, you can actually answer "what does this affect?"