Reverse Engineering Coverage Audit — 4.0
Mission
Challenge completeness, not just correctness.
Ask:
What important architecture did the previous investigation fail to look at?
Inputs
Review compactly:
00_investigation_coverage.md
00_current_understanding.md
00_master_decision_matrix.md
00_open_questions.md
00_evidence_ledger.md
Compare against current repository topology and source search.
Coverage Domains
Assess applicability and depth for:
- inbound surfaces
- startup/bootstrap
- major business/service modules
- representative runtime flows
- all materially distinct integration implementations
- factories/providers/registries/DI
- configuration sources/defaults/precedence
- external boundaries
- boundary → exposure closure for important downstream operations
- field/data provenance for externally meaningful values
- request/input semantics for externally visible interfaces
- persistence/schema
- error/retry/fallback
- lifecycle/concurrency
- auth/security
- observability/audit
- compatibility/version/model branches
- background/internal jobs
- tests revealing alternate behavior
Adversarial Coverage Search
Search for source clusters and evidence chains absent from the baseline:
- implementations never referenced by decision matrix
- config keys never traced to consumers
- DB/DAO/schema packages not represented
- process/HTTP/socket/CLI clients not represented
- entry points not represented
- downstream boundaries with unresolved invocation sites
- shared runtime methods with only one external caller documented
- response/output fields with no provenance chain
- conditional output claims with no retrieval/mapping evidence
- factories/providers without verified routing claims
- background workers not represented
- model/version switches not represented
- endpoint-specific conditions generalized across sibling operations
Required Cross-Cutting Coverage Checks
In addition to architecture domains, audit these evidence dimensions:
A. Exposure Closure Coverage
For important downstream boundaries, ask:
boundary
← all direct invocation sites
← all caller chains
← all external entry points / proven internal roots
Coverage is incomplete when:
- one invocation site is unresolved
- only a representative external endpoint is documented
- a no-impact claim lacks a terminating reverse trace
B. Field / Data Provenance Coverage
For externally meaningful fields/data, ask whether baseline artifacts prove:
trigger
→ retrieval/source
→ parse
→ transform
→ mapping/state
→ serialization/output
→ observable result
Coverage is incomplete if a promoted behavior claim skips a material link.
C. Scope-Isolation Coverage
Check whether endpoint/operation-specific conditions are recorded independently. Shared implementation does not prove shared contract semantics.
Coverage Matrix
| Domain / Evidence Dimension | Source Evidence It Exists | Existing RE Coverage | Depth | Gap | Impact | Required Follow-up |
|---|
Depth:
NOT_APPLICABLE
DISCOVERED
TRACED
PROVENANCE_TRACED
EXPOSURE_CLOSED
VERIFIED
Use only states applicable to the domain; do not force provenance/exposure states where irrelevant.
Gap impact:
CRITICAL
HIGH
MEDIUM
LOW
NONE
Consumer-Model Coverage
Also audit whether the verified evidence has been converted into a usable system model. Check:
5 mandatory diagram artifacts present
major subsystem responsibilities modeled
primary runtime flows modeled
known external integrations modeled
behavior-changing configuration selectors modeled
persistence/state ownership modeled
diagram nodes/edges evidence-linked
CURRENT_STATE_TDD references the model artifacts
A baseline with complete evidence tables but missing architecture synthesis is not complete.
Gate
Any CRITICAL/HIGH source-resolvable coverage gap or mandatory consumer-model gap means baseline readiness is:
NOT_READY_HIGH_IMPACT_GAPS
Create/open a question and return it to /resolve-high-impact-unknowns.
Treat unresolved provenance or exposure closure as HIGH/CRITICAL when it can change:
- externally observable behavior
- API/entry-point impact scope
- routing/integration conclusions
- compatibility or migration decisions.
Output
Create:
docs/reverse-engineering/11_reverse_engineering_coverage_audit.md
Update 00_investigation_coverage.md and 00_workflow_state.md.