`org-req` - An org-mode Requirements Library

WARNING: Very unstable and untested. This is my first stab at honest-to-goodness Elisp coding, and I haven’t tested it much. Besides that, features are extremely limited.

Goals

Add convenience functions to org-mode that enable the following when working with requirements and the artifacts surrounding them:

track dependencies
keep links consistent
export to usable formats (i.e. org-tables or prettified org-mode files)

Sample Format

The current implementation (which is subject to change) takes a file of the following format:

* Category-Abbrev
** Long description of item name
   :PROPERTIES:
   :ID:       15c8038b-8f68-44f4-ad73-968420a1b831
   :TRACES_TO: 397e946c-efb1-426f-b2ec-55af0c38eaa9 9cf90e5a-9b96-4151-bb81-67c4eb9ab46f
   :END:
** Long description of other item
   :PROPERTIES:
   :ID:       c79d7134-78d8-4b9e-91b3-27011c7cd83e
   :TRACES_TO: 9cf90e5a-9b96-4151-bb81-67c4eb9ab46f
   :END:
* Another-Category
** A linked item
   :PROPERTIES:
   :TRACES_FROM: 15c8038b-8f68-44f4-ad73-968420a1b831
   :ID:       397e946c-efb1-426f-b2ec-55af0c38eaa9
   :END:
** Another linked item
   :PROPERTIES:
   :TRACES_FROM: 15c8038b-8f68-44f4-ad73-968420a1b831 c79d7134-78d8-4b9e-91b3-27011c7cd83e
   :ID:       9cf90e5a-9b96-4151-bb81-67c4eb9ab46f
   :END:

Explanation of Custom Properties

ID: The ID can be whatever UID you want, but it is easiest to use org-mode’s builtin org-id-copy functionality.
TRACES_TO: Indicates an outgoing dependency.
TRACES_FROM: Indicates a dependency on another item.

Category Ordering

The traces must form a directed acyclic graph (DAG), meaning no cycles and no going back. Additionally, no two items in the same category can trace to each other, and no item in a later category may trace to an earlier category.

These restrictions may be loosened in the future.

Functions

`org-req-translate-buffer`

Translates the current buffer into a traceability matrix (without column labels) into a new buffer named output.org (can you tell this was put together in an evening? because this was put together in an evening).

Lewis-Kelley/org-req

org-req - An org-mode Requirements Library