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Changelog

All notable changes to the RQML schema are documented here.

2.2.0​

July 2026

Compact trace edges (breaking)​

Trace edge endpoints move from nested elements to from / to attributes. The locator, local, doc, and external elements are removed.

<!-- 2.1.0 -->
<edge id="TR-001" type="satisfies">
  <from><locator><local id="REQ-A"/></locator></from>
  <to><locator><local id="GOAL-B"/></locator></to>
</edge>

<!-- 2.2.0 -->
<edge id="TR-001" type="satisfies" from="REQ-A" to="GOAL-B"/>

The three endpoint kinds are unchanged in meaning; the kind is now inferred from the value's shape:

  • a bare id is local — REQ-A
  • an rqml: URI is a cross-document reference — rqml:goals.rqml#GOAL-B;version=2.0
  • any other scheme URI, or a relative path containing /, is external — jira:PROJ-1, src/auth.ts

The locator's kind and title hints become per-side fromKind / fromTitle / toKind / toTitle attributes. confidence, status, createdBy, createdAt, tags, and <notes> are unchanged.

No other part of the schema changed, and no functionality was added or removed — this release is a serialization change only. It shrinks the trace section by about 40%; how much that saves overall depends on how trace-heavy the document is (7–13% of total bytes on the specs we measured).

Migrating​

rqml migrate rewrites a 2.0.1 or 2.1.0 document in place; --dry-run previews it. See the Migration guide.

Fixed​

  • The XSD's allIds identity constraint used an unprefixed selector, so it never fired. Its selector is namespace-qualified in 2.2.0, and duplicate ids are now caught.
  • The inert trace keyrefs are removed. Endpoint integrity is enforced by the processor — rqml validate — since XSD 1.0 cannot express the endpoint grammar.

2.1.0​

February 2026

Trace redesign​

  • Renamed traceEdge to edge with structured endpoints (from/to containing locator elements)
  • Added three locator types: local (same document), doc (cross-document), external (URI-based)
  • Cross-document references support version and git pinning for immutability

New TraceType values​

  • consumesInterface — source consumes interface provided by target
  • providesInterface — source provides interface consumed by target
  • conformsTo — source conforms to standard/specification target
  • deprecates — source deprecates target
  • breaks — source breaks backward compatibility with target

Removed​

  • RefType and RefsType — inline refs elements removed from scenario, req, transition, testCase, actor, and testSuite (use trace edges instead)
  • fromUri / toUri attributes on trace edges (replaced by external locator)

2.0.1​

December 2025

Initial public release of the new LLM-first RQML schema.

1.0.0​

June 2000

Original release of RQML - the first XML standard to capture software intent in a structured, machine-readable form - at the University of York department of computer science. It was way ahead of its time.