Compliance Glossary for Confluence

What is reverse traceability?

Reverse traceability starts with an implementation artifact and follows imported or approved evidence toward its governing reason. Production v6 labels this action Reverse provenance. A path can connect code, documents, tests, or deviations to requirements, business decisions, regulations, and approval evidence. Missing retained evidence remains visible at the affected hop.

Last verified against production v6 · 26 September 2026

At a glance

InputActionOutputLimit
Governed artifactSelect Reverse provenanceOrdered upstream evidence hopsThe start node must exist in the deposited graph
Imported or approved edgeTraverse toward its sourceTyped requirement or decision pathCandidate and rejected links are excluded
Retained evidence IDSelect Open evidenceFrozen supporting recordSome hops can report unavailable evidence
Broken or moved endpointPreserve its stateVisible provenance gapThe app does not repair external sources

How it works

  1. Open Enterprise evidence workspace.
  2. Search for the implementation artifact.
  3. Open its retained revision.
  4. Select Reverse provenance.
  5. Follow the typed links toward the root reason.
  6. Open evidence at every retained hop.

Example

An investigator starts with a GitHub code revision. Reverse provenance follows an approved implementation link to a component requirement. Further links connect it to a system requirement and a business decision. Each retained hop exposes its evidence. An unavailable record stays visible instead of disappearing from the path.

What this does not mean

Reverse traceability reports the governed graph that was deposited. It does not infer undocumented reasons or approve suggested links. A complete-looking path is only as reliable as its approved links, retained evidence, and coverage state.

Related questions

Next step

Use reverse provenance when leadership needs the recorded reason behind an implementation.

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Verification basis: production v6 code, tests, manifest, and operations guidance. Verified 26 September 2026.