Glossary Updates12 new terms added to the glossaries · October 2, 2026, 22:44 CEST
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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.

By knowledge.aitechdoc.world · Published September 26, 2026 · Last reviewed

Source: ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148, Systems and software engineering — Life cycle processes — Requirements engineering

Definitions follow the cited standards and specifications. Where a source is a copyrighted publication, such as an ISO, IEC or EN standard, the definition is a close paraphrase, not a verbatim quotation, so as not to infringe copyright. We recommend reading the original publication. The sections “How it applies” are editorial commentary by AI TechDoc Knowledge and are not part of any standard.

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