Glossary · Requirements and interfaces
Requirement attribute
Also known as: Requirement metadata
German: Anforderungsattribut
In requirements engineering, a requirement attribute is a piece of metadata attached to a requirement, such as identifier, source, priority, owner, status, verification method, safety relevance or version, used to manage, filter and trace it.
- Systems engineering
- Data and interfaces
In one sentence
A requirement attribute is metadata attached to a requirement, such as ID, source, priority, status or verification method.
Example
Each requirement in the safety specification carries the attributes 'SIL/PL', 'verification method', 'owner' and 'status'.
How it applies
- Engineering: Attributes make requirement sets manageable: filtering all safety-relevant requirements or all requirements still "proposed" before a review.
- Tooling: Requirements tools and ReqIF exchanges transport attributes; agree on a shared attribute schema with suppliers before exchanging.
- Documentation: Attributes such as "user-visible" or "affects documentation" help the documentation team find the requirements that must appear in manuals.
- Governance: Keep the attribute set small and defined in a project guideline; attributes nobody maintains quickly become misleading and undermine trust in reports.
Requirement attribute vs. requirement text
The requirement text states the need itself; attributes describe how it is managed. Changing an attribute (for example status) is not a change to the requirement, but changing the text is, and should create a new version.