c5dec

C5-DEC CAD documentation

This directory contains all documentation for the C5-DEC CAD (Common Criteria for Cybersecurity, Cryptography, Clouds – Design, Evaluation and Certification, Computer-Aided Design) project, organized into distinct categories to support different audiences and purposes.

See our technical specification traceability web site for a live view of the full specification tree and traceability coverage, produced by the C5-DEC SpecEngine.

Documentation structure

manual/ - User and developer manuals

Audience: End users, system administrators, and developers

Purpose: Practical, task-oriented documentation explaining HOW to use, configure, and operate the system.

Contents:

Characteristics:

specs/ - Requirements and specifications (Doorstop)

Audience: System architects, requirements engineers, QA teams, auditors

Purpose: Formal, traceable requirements and design decisions defining WHAT and WHY.

Contents:

Characteristics:

traceability/ - Published requirements traceability

Audience: Stakeholders, auditors, project managers

Purpose: Generated HTML documentation showing full requirements traceability matrix.

Contents:

Generation: Run cd docs/specs && ./publish.sh to regenerate from Doorstop sources.


Maintaining balance: specs vs. manual

The project uses a clear separation of concerns to avoid content duplication and minimize maintenance burden:

Separation of concerns

Aspect specs/ (Doorstop) manual/
Focus WHAT and WHY HOW
Content Requirements, acceptance criteria, design rationale Setup guides, usage tutorials, configuration references
Audience Architects, QA, auditors Users, operators, developers
Format Formal Doorstop documents Narrative tutorials
Stability Versioned, reviewed, formally approved Living documentation, frequently updated

Content ownership matrix

Content type Owner Example
User stories Specs (SRS) “As a CC evaluator, I want…”
Acceptance criteria Specs (SRS) “System shall load CC SFR database…”
Design rationale Specs (ARC) “Selected modular architecture due to…”
Architecture diagrams Specs (ARC) + Schematics Component relationship diagrams
CLI syntax Manual poetry run c5dec cct --filter...
Configuration options Manual Field-by-field YAML reference
Installation steps Manual Numbered procedures
Troubleshooting Manual Error messages and solutions
Code examples Manual Complete working examples
API documentation Manual Function signatures, parameters