GPR-023 — Inspectable and Testable Conformance

Go to Annex C: Requirements

The proposed specification SHOULD define sufficient constraints on Interfaces, externally observable behavior, conformance-relevant implementation characteristics, and required evidence to permit unambiguous conformance assessment through manual inspection and automated testing.

Recommended

Conformance requirements provide limited value when independent evaluators cannot determine whether an implementation satisfies them.

Clearly defined constraints, conformance points, evidence, and acceptance criteria support consistent assessment by implementers, testing organizations, acquisition authorities, and other evaluators. Manual inspection and automated testing provide complementary means of assessing conformance.

This requirement applies only to implementation characteristics that affect satisfaction of normative requirements. It does not justify constraints on internal implementation choices that do not affect conformance.

A Submission satisfying this recommendation demonstrates that:

1. Each normative requirement has objectively assessable conformance conditions
2. Applicable Interfaces and externally observable behavior are defined with sufficient precision for conformance assessment
3. Conformance-relevant implementation characteristics are explicitly identified
4. Required conformance evidence is identified
5. Applicable inspection procedures, test conditions, expected results, or acceptance criteria are defined
6. Manual inspection can assess requirements that are not suitable for automated testing
7. Automated testing can assess requirements that have machine-observable conditions
8. Independent evaluators can reach consistent conformance conclusions using the defined criteria

1. SIP-021 — Independent Conformance Requirements
2. SIP-022 — Technology-Independent Conformance Points
3. SIP-054 — Implementation Conformance Model
4. SIP-055 — Architectural Element Conformance Classification

This requirement is recommended because it uses SHOULD.

The requirement does not mean that every conformance condition must be assessed through both manual inspection and automated testing. The proposed specification should identify the assessment method or combination of methods appropriate to each conformance condition.

A conformance-relevant implementation characteristic is a characteristic that affects satisfaction of a normative requirement. Internal implementation choices that do not affect conformance remain outside the scope of this requirement.

“Unambiguous” does not require every evaluator to use an identical procedure. It requires the conformance conditions, required evidence, and acceptance criteria to be sufficiently precise to support consistent conclusions.

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