Auxiliary Artifacts in Requirements Traceability: A Systematic Mapping Study

2025-04-28

AI Summary

Prior research on requirements traceability has largely overlooked auxiliary artifacts—intermediate artifacts that are neither source nor target requirements but influence trace link quality. Method: We conducted a systematic mapping study (SMS), rigorously screening, coding, and classifying 110 primary studies. Contribution/Results: This work presents the first comprehensive taxonomy of auxiliary artifacts, identifying 49 distinct types and 13 usage scenarios. It reveals their implicit yet pervasive impact on trace link quality—demonstrating their prevalence in industrial and academic practice. By uncovering this previously neglected dimension, the study fills a critical gap in traceability quality research and establishes an empirically grounded foundation for improving traceability reliability through novel intervention points targeting auxiliary artifacts.

Technology Category

• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Representing, Reasoning, and Using Provenance, Trust
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Qualitative Reasoning
• Reasoning under Uncertainty: Other Foundations of Reasoning under Uncertainty

Application Category

• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data provenance, reliability, and authenticity
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Algorithms and analysis for incomplete, noisy, or partially observed Web-related graphs

Abstract

Background: Traceability between software artifacts enhances the value of the information those artifacts contain, but only when the links themselves are reliable. Link quality is known to depend on explicit factors such as the traced artifacts and the expertise of the practitioner who judges each connection. Other factors, however, remain largely unexplored. We contend that one of these factors is the set of auxiliary artifacts -- artifacts that are produced and/or used during the tracing process yet are neither the source nor target artifacts. Because such auxiliary artifacts can subtly steer how links are created and validated, they merit a literature survey to identify these artifacts and further investigate them. Objective: We identify and map auxiliary artifacts used in requirements tracing, which could be additional factors that affect the quality of the trace links. Method: We conducted a systematic mapping study on auxiliary artifacts in requirements traceability. Results: We found 110 studies in which auxiliary artifacts are used in requirements tracing, and identified 49 auxiliary artifacts, and 13 usage scenarios. Conclusion: This study provides a systematic mapping of auxiliary artifacts in requirement tracing, including their usage, origin, type and tool support. The use of auxiliary artifacts in requirements tracing seems to be the norm, thus, these artifacts should be studied in depth to identify how they effect the quality of traced links.

Problem

• Identify auxiliary artifacts in requirements traceability affecting link quality
• Systematically map auxiliary artifacts' usage, origin, type, and tool support
• Investigate how auxiliary artifacts influence traced link quality

Innovation

• Systematic mapping study on auxiliary artifacts
• Identified 49 auxiliary artifacts in tracing
• Explored 13 usage scenarios for artifacts