req-planner

A standalone requirements management tool with interactive graph visualization, hierarchical decomposition, quality gates, and code traceability. Designed as a general-purpose planning tool that can connect to any repository.

What It Does

req-planner lets you decompose high-level project goals into traceable, testable requirements organized as a directed acyclic graph (DAG). Each requirement is a card that can be drilled down from abstract pillars to code-level leaf nodes, with quality validation at every level.

Core Concepts

• Pillars — Top-level project goals (e.g., "MIDI Signal Path")
• Requirements — Functional requirements under a pillar
• Sub-requirements — Decomposed pieces of a requirement
• Leaves — Code-level items with test specs and implementation
• Planning — Planning-phase nodes (larger green-tinted cards)

Each node carries:

• Acceptance criteria (what it must do)
• Test specification (GIVEN/WHEN/THEN format)
• Test and implementation code snippets
• Target file paths for code export
• Quality gate status
• Gitea issue integration fields

Quality Gates (TMCS)

Every requirement is validated against four gates:

Gate	Type	Rule
Traceable	Auto	Has a parent requirement and description
Measurable	Toggle	Forced false without test specification; user can toggle when test spec exists
Consistent	Toggle	User asserts no contradictions with sibling requirements
Single-purpose	Toggle	User asserts requirement serves exactly one concern

T is auto-calculated from the requirement's structure. M, C, and S are user-set toggles — click the badge in the detail panel to flip them. M is enforced: if a node has no test specification, measurable is always false regardless of the toggle.

Visual indicators on graph nodes:

• Red dot — Fewer than 2 quality gates pass
• Orange dot — 2 of 3 gates pass
• Green dot — All quality gates pass

Requirement Status Flow

Requirements follow a lifecycle: idea → draft → todo → in_progress → done

• idea (purple) — ideas backlog; things you're thinking about but haven't committed to building
• draft (gray) — being defined, not yet ready for work
• todo (blue) — defined and ready to implement
• in_progress (yellow) — actively being worked on
• done (green) — completed

Satisfaction Links

Requirements can declare they "also satisfy" other requirements beyond their parent. This creates cross-cutting traceability:

• Also Satisfies — outgoing links: "this requirement also contributes to requirement X"
• Satisfied By — incoming links: "requirement Y also contributes to this one"

These appear as purple dashed edges in the graph.

Features

Interactive Graph View (/graph)

The main view renders the requirement tree as a Cytoscape.js DAG with dagre layout.

Semantic zoom — node detail changes continuously with zoom level:

Zoom Range	What You See
0 - 0.3	Dots with ID only
0.3 - 0.6	Cards with ID, title, child count
0.6 - 1.0	Cards with TMCS quality badges
1.0+	Expanded cards with AC count and status

Mouse interactions:

Action	Behavior
Click node	Select node, open detail panel, highlight paths to root (parent-child + satisfaction links)
Shift+Click	Highlight parent-child path to root only (no satisfaction links)
Alt+Click (Win) / Option+Click (Mac)	Highlight only "also satisfies" links for a node
Ctrl+Click (Win) / Cmd+Click (Mac)	Focus mode: show node, direct children, and paths to roots
Ctrl+Shift+Click (Win) / Cmd+Shift+Click (Mac)	Deep focus: show node, all descendants to leaves, and paths to roots
Right-click	Highlight entire subtree downward
Click background	Exit focus mode or close detail panel
Drag node	Reposition (saved across sessions)

Keyboard shortcuts:

Key	Action
+ / =	Zoom in
-	Zoom out
0	Fit graph to screen
Ctrl+Z (Win) / Cmd+Z (Mac)	Undo last canvas action
Esc	Exit focus mode

Canvas undo tracks all interactions: node clicks, focus/exit, right-click highlights, and node drags. Up to 20 states are kept in the undo stack.

Persistence:

• Node positions saved to localStorage — drag nodes to rearrange and they stay put across reloads
• Viewport (zoom + pan) persisted across sessions
• Selected node and panel state restored on reload
• Re-layout button resets to auto-calculated dagre positions

Named layouts:

• Save the current graph layout (node positions + viewport) with a name and description
• Load any saved layout from the toolbar dropdown
• Set a default layout that auto-loads on startup
• Manage layouts: load, set default, or delete

Edge rendering:

• Parent-child edges: solid gray lines, width scales up when zoomed out
• Satisfaction links: purple dashed lines with directional arrows
• Path highlight: blue for parent-child, purple for satisfaction links

Detail Panel

A 420px side panel for viewing and editing a requirement:

• Inline editing for title, description, priority, status, phase, node type
• Acceptance criteria and test spec (GIVEN/WHEN/THEN) editors
• Test code and implementation code blocks (monospace)
• Quality gate badges — click M/C/S to toggle, T is auto-calculated
• Quality validation with error/warning display
• Child requirements list with add-child form (auto-generates IDs)
• Parent card link — click to navigate to parent
• Also Satisfies section — manage outgoing satisfaction links with typeahead search
• Satisfied By section — view incoming links, click to navigate
• Edit history — collapsible section showing all versions with timestamps and change summaries
  • Click a version to see field-level diffs (changed fields highlighted)
  • Restore any previous version (creates a new version with "Restored from version N" note)
• Gitea issue badge with link (when issue number is set)
• Delete with cascade confirmation

Dashboard (/dashboard)

Statistics overview with:

• Node counts by type (pillars, requirements, sub-requirements, leaves, planning)
• Test coverage percentage
• Breakdown by status and priority
• Quality gates pass/fail ratio

Authentication

• Password-based login with JWT tokens (24-hour expiry)
• Protected routes with auth guard
• Token auto-injected into API requests via HTTP interceptor
• Configurable password via REQ_PLANNER_PASSWORD environment variable

Architecture

req-planner/
├── backend/          FastAPI + SQLAlchemy + SQLite
│   └── app/
│       ├── main.py           App entry, CORS config, router registration
│       ├── auth.py           JWT authentication
│       ├── database.py       SQLite connection (data/planner.db)
│       ├── models.py         ORM models (RequirementNode, CrossPillarLink,
│       │                       Project, RequirementHistory, GraphLayout)
│       ├── schemas.py        Pydantic request/response schemas
│       ├── quality.py        TMCS validation logic
│       └── routers/
│           ├── requirements.py   CRUD + tree + validation + history endpoints
│           ├── links.py          Cross-pillar link management
│           ├── projects.py       Project CRUD
│           ├── stats.py          Aggregated statistics
│           └── layouts.py        Named graph layout CRUD
├── frontend/         Angular 17 + Cytoscape.js
│   └── src/app/
│       ├── core/
│       │   ├── guards/           Auth route guard
│       │   ├── interceptors/     JWT token interceptor
│       │   ├── models/           TypeScript interfaces
│       │   └── services/         HTTP API client (requirements, auth)
│       └── features/
│           ├── graph/            Interactive DAG visualization
│           ├── detail/           Side panel editor with history
│           ├── dashboard/        Statistics overview
│           └── login/            Password login
├── data/
│   └── planner.db    SQLite database (auto-created)
└── docs/
    └── MARKET-RESEARCH.md   Competitive analysis

API Endpoints

Requirements

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/requirements	List requirements (filter by project_id, parent_id)
GET	/api/requirements/tree	Tree structure for graph rendering
GET	/api/requirements/{id}	Single requirement with children
POST	/api/requirements	Create requirement
PUT	/api/requirements/{id}	Update requirement
DELETE	/api/requirements/{id}	Delete requirement (cascades to children)
PATCH	/api/requirements/{id}/status	Update status only
POST	/api/requirements/{id}/validate	Run TMCS quality gates
GET	/api/requirements/{id}/children	List direct children

Edit History

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/requirements/{id}/history	List all versions (newest first)
GET	/api/requirements/{id}/history/{version}	Get specific version snapshot
POST	/api/requirements/{id}/history/{version}/restore	Restore to previous version

Satisfaction Links

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/links	List links (optional node_id filter)
POST	/api/links	Create satisfaction link
DELETE	/api/links/{source_id}/{target_id}	Delete link

Graph Layouts

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/layouts	List saved layouts (optional project_id filter)
GET	/api/layouts/{id}	Get layout with positions and viewport
POST	/api/layouts	Save current layout
PUT	/api/layouts/{id}	Update layout
DELETE	/api/layouts/{id}	Delete layout

Other

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/health	Health check
POST	/api/auth/login	Login, returns JWT token
GET/POST/DELETE	/api/projects	Project management
GET	/api/stats	Aggregated statistics

Interactive API docs available at http://localhost:8100/docs (Swagger UI).

Tech Stack

Backend:

• Python 3.12+, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy 2.0, SQLite
• Pydantic 2.10+ for validation
• python-jose for JWT tokens
• Uvicorn ASGI server

Frontend:

• Angular 17 (standalone components, new control flow syntax)
• Cytoscape.js + cytoscape-dagre for graph rendering
• RxJS for reactive data flow
• SCSS with dark theme (GitHub-inspired palette)
• OnPush change detection, lazy-loaded routes

Running Locally

Backend

cd backend
uv sync              # or: pip install -e ".[dev]"
uvicorn app.main:app --reload --port 8100

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install
ng serve             # runs on http://localhost:4200

The frontend proxies API requests to http://localhost:8100/api via proxy.conf.json.

Database

SQLite database at data/planner.db, auto-created on first backend startup. Five tables:

• requirement_nodes — hierarchical requirements with quality flags, code metadata, and timestamps
• cross_pillar_links — many-to-many satisfaction links between requirements
• projects — project containers with optional repo path/URL
• requirement_history — versioned snapshots of requirement edits
• graph_layouts — named layout snapshots with node positions and viewport state