OVFT Requirement Tracing — VS Code Extension
Navigate between requirement specifications (in markdown) and their coverage tags (in source code) for Open Very Fast Trace projects.
Features
| Feature |
Description |
| Go to Definition |
Ctrl+Click / F12 on a coverage tag jumps to the requirement spec in markdown |
| Find References |
Shift+F12 on a requirement ID shows all coverage tags and related specs |
| Follow Requirement |
Cmd+Shift+R (context menu) — navigate to the spec definition |
| Find Coverage |
Cmd+Shift+T (context menu) — find all tags covering a requirement |
| CodeLens |
Inline annotations showing coverage status above requirement IDs and tags |
| Hover |
Hover over any requirement ID to see coverage summary with clickable links |
| Highlight |
All occurrences of the same requirement ID are highlighted in the current file |
How It Works
The extension indexes your workspace on activation:
- Specification files (
*.md): Scans for requirement IDs in backticks (`req~name~1`) and parses their Needs:, Covers:, and Depends: metadata.
- Source files (
*.rs, *.java, *.py, *.ts, etc.): Scans for coverage tags in two formats:
- Full tag:
[impl->dsn~validate-request~1]
- Short tag:
[[req~login~1:impl]]
The index is kept up-to-date via file watchers.
Non-interference with other LSPs
The extension registers VS Code providers (Definition, References, Hover, etc.) that return undefined when the cursor is not on a requirement ID or tag. VS Code merges results from all providers, so language-specific LSPs continue to work normally for regular code symbols.
type~name~revision
Examples: req~user-auth~1, dsn~login-module~2, impl~validate~1
Full Tag
[impl->dsn~validate-authentication-request~1]
[dsn~my-design~1->req~user-login~1>>impl,utest]
Short Tag
[[req~login~1:impl]]
Configuration
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
ovft.specFilePatterns |
["**/*.md"] |
Glob patterns for spec files |
ovft.tagFilePatterns |
["**/*.rs", "**/*.java", ...] |
Glob patterns for source files |
ovft.excludePatterns |
["**/target/**", ...] |
Patterns to exclude |
ovft.codeLensEnabled |
true |
Show CodeLens annotations |
Development
cd ovft-vscode
npm install
npm run compile
Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host for testing.
Building a VSIX
npm install -g @vscode/vsce
cd ovft-vscode
vsce package
This produces ovft-tracing-0.1.0.vsix which can be installed via:
code --install-extension ovft-tracing-0.1.0.vsix
