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Conformance Cases

Conformance Cases connect a project-owned acceptance scenario to one or more versioned RFC Clause requirements and reusable Verification Guards:

RFC Clause requirement -> Conformance Case -> Verification Guard
normative authority       derived scenario    execution entrypoint

A Case is traceability metadata, not a test runner or a source of normative requirements. When a Case and an RFC disagree, the RFC governs.

Create A Case

The scenario path must already exist, stay inside the repository, and remain outside gov/. The selector is project-defined; use * for the complete file.

govctl conformance new "Cache invalidation behavior" \
  --path tests/conformance/cache.toml \
  --selector cache-expiry \
  --requirement RFC-0012:C-CACHE-EXPIRY@1.2.0 \
  --guard GUARD-CACHE-CONFORMANCE

Requirement values always use <CLAUSE-ID>@<RFC-VERSION>. A Case may bind multiple requirements and Guards.

Inspect And Edit

govctl conformance list
govctl conformance show CONF-CACHE-INVALIDATION-BEHAVIOR
govctl conformance get CONF-CACHE-INVALIDATION-BEHAVIOR requirements

govctl conformance edit CONF-CACHE-INVALIDATION-BEHAVIOR \
  requirements --add RFC-0012:C-CACHE-FALLBACK@1.2.0
govctl conformance edit CONF-CACHE-INVALIDATION-BEHAVIOR \
  requirements[0].version --set 1.3.0
govctl conformance edit CONF-CACHE-INVALIDATION-BEHAVIOR \
  requirements[1] --remove

Case mutations validate the complete prospective trace graph before writing. Removing the final requirement is rejected.

Query Traceability

govctl conformance trace
govctl conformance trace RFC-0012
govctl conformance trace RFC-0012:C-CACHE-EXPIRY
govctl conformance trace CONF-CACHE-INVALIDATION-BEHAVIOR --output json
govctl conformance trace GUARD-CACHE-CONFORMANCE

Trace output derives provisional, candidate, current, or stale applicability from the referenced RFC version and Clause lifecycle. These values describe the declared relationship only; they do not mean that a scenario has run or passed.

Cases also participate in govctl search, controlled-vocabulary tags, govctl status, and govctl check.

Schema Migration

Conformance Cases were introduced in project schema version 4. Upgrade an existing project to the current schema with:

govctl migrate
govctl check

Migration preserves valid prospective Case files and rejects an invalid Case graph without partially changing the repository.