Summary

Protocol upgrade from v6.3 to v6.4, adding mandatory requirement attributes and a post-validation QC phase.

Changes

1. Mandatory —verification attribute

Problem: Requirements were created without specifying how they would be verified. The verification method was either omitted entirely or buried in free-text VER entries, making it difficult to assess testability at a glance.

Fix: Every airgen reqs create call must include --verification with one of: Test, Analysis, Inspection, Demonstration. Updated all example commands in Flows A and B.

2. Mandatory —rationale attribute

Problem: Requirements lacked documented reasoning for why they exist and why specific values were chosen. Performance values like “10 Hz” or “MTBF 10,000 hours” appeared without engineering justification, making it impossible to assess whether they are appropriate or arbitrary.

Fix: Every requirement must include --rationale. Depth scales with criticality:

Requirement type	Rationale depth
Performance (Hz, ms, m, MTBF)	Explain derivation of the value and what fails if not met
Safety (ASIL, SIL, hazard refs)	Explain what hazard drives it and why this mitigation
All other	Explain what stakeholder need or constraint motivates it (one sentence minimum)

3. Post-validation QC phase (Flow E)

Problem: Validation (Flow D) adds missing components, requirements, and interfaces to close gaps. These late additions haven’t been through QC — they could introduce ambiguous requirements, missing trace links, or orphaned entries into an already-reviewed baseline.

Fix: After validation sets status to validated, a post-validation QC pass (Flow E) runs as a lightweight review scoped to the validation session’s changes:

• Check new requirements for verification attribute, rationale, testability, EARS compliance
• Run orphan report and lint
• Fix any issues in-session
• Only then mark complete

Flow D no longer marks complete directly — it sets validated. Only Flow E can set complete.

4. Updated status progression

scaffolded → first-pass-complete → qc-reviewed → validated → complete

Five stages, three quality gates. No system can reach complete without passing QC, validation, and post-validation QC.

Implications

1. From session 213 onward, all new requirements include verification method and rationale.
2. The Water Treatment Plant (currently in progress) will be the first system to produce requirements with these attributes.
3. Previously created requirements in completed systems do not have these attributes — they are not retroactively updated.
4. The post-validation QC adds one additional session to the completion pipeline.
5. Protocol version is now 6.4.

Version manifest

Component	Version	Notes
Session protocol	6.4	Up from 6.3
Requirement attributes	+verification, +rationale	Mandatory on all reqs
Status progression	5-stage	Was 4-stage
Flow E	Post-validation QC	New