ADATracer - Towards A Software Traceability Pipeline for ADA Systems
TL;DR
ADATracer is presented, a software traceability tool designed to recover links between natural language requirements, Ada source files, version-control commits, and issue-tracking artifacts, and an Ada-aware parser that accounts for language features such as package specifications, bodies, and strong typing.
Abstract
Traceability is an important part of safety-critical software development in areas such as avionics, space, and automotive engineering. Ada is often used in these systems. It shows how requirements are implemented in code and how changes are reflected in commits and issue reports. Automated traceability tools for Ada are not as common as those for other programming languages. Currently, the systematic linking of requirements to Ada source files, version-control history, and issue artifacts is often a manual process that requires effort to maintain throughout the software lifecycle. We present ADATracer, a software traceability tool designed to recover links between natural language requirements, Ada source files, version-control commits, and issue-tracking artifacts. The tool uses keyword-based retrieval, semantic vector embeddings, and a Neo4j-based knowledge graph. It includes an Ada-aware parser that accounts for language features such as package specifications, bodies, and strong typing. ADATracer supports traceability recovery and graph-based exploration, allowing for the inspection of evidence chains from requirements to implementation and issue resolution. We apply ADATracer to the open-source Ada Web Application (AWA) framework, where the tool identifies traceability links. This work facilitates traceability in certification-driven Ada development and provides a framework for further study in safety-critical software systems. The source code and demonstration video are publicly available at https://github.com/rishalab/ADATracer and https://youtu.be/sb66cEffF-o.