OSLC Quality Management Version 2.1. Part 1: Specification

This specification defines the OSLC Quality Management domain, a RESTful web services interface for the management of product, service or software quality artefacts, activities, tasks and relationships between those and related resources such as requirements, defects, change requests or architectural resources. To support these scenarios, this specification defines a set of HTTP-based RESTful interfaces in terms of HTTP methods: GET, POST, PUT and DELETE, HTTP response codes, content type handling and resource formats.

Introduction

This specification builds on the OSLC Core Specification [[!OSLCCore3]] to define the resources and operations supported by an Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) Quality Management (QM) provider.

Quality Management resources define the test plans, test cases, and test results of the software delivery lifecycle. They represent individual resources along with their relationships to other shared resource types such change requests and requirements. The intent of this specification is to define the set of HTTP-based RESTful interfaces in terms of HTTP methods: GET, POST, PUT and DELETE, HTTP response codes, mime type handling and resource formats. The capabilities of the interface definitions are driven by key integration scenarios and therefore don't represent a complete setup of operations on resources or resource types. The resource formats and operations may not match exactly the native models supported by quality management service providers but are intended to be compatible with them.

A key approach to supporting these scenarios is to delegate operations, as driven by service provider contributed user interfaces, as much as possible and not require a service provider to expose its complete data model and application logic.

IPR Policy

This Committee Specification Public Review Draft is being developed under the RF on Limited Terms Mode of the OASIS IPR Policy, the mode chosen when the Technical Committee was established. For information on whether any patents have been disclosed that may be essential to implementing this specification, and any offers of patent licensing terms, please refer to the Intellectual Property Rights section of the TC’s web page (https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/oslc-domains/ipr.php).

Terminology

Terminology uses and extends the terminology and capabilities of [[!OSLCCore3]].

Quality Management Resource: A resource managed by an OSLC QM service provider. The types of resources defined by this specification are Test Plan, Test Case, Test Script, Test Execution Record, and Test Result.
Service Provider: An implementation of the OSLC Quality Management specifications as a server. OSLC QM clients consume these services
Client: An implementation of the OSLC Quality Management specifications as a client. OSLC QM Clients consume services provided by servers
Server: An implementation of the OSLC Quality Management specifications as a server. OSLC QM Clients consume services provided by Servers. The use of the terms Client and Server are intended to distinguish typical consumers and providers of OSLC resources in a distributed environment based on REST. A particular application component could be a client for some OSLC domain services and a server for the same or another domain.
Test Plan Resource: Defines the overall process and strategy for testing a system
Test Case Resource: Defines the criteria which determine whether a system exhibits the correct behavior under a specific set of circumstances
Test Script Resource: Defines a program or list of steps used to conduct a test
Test Execution Record Resource: Planning for execution of a test
Test Result Resource: Describes the outcome of attempting to execute a test

References

Base Requirements

The following sub-sections define the mandatory and optional requirements for an OSLC Quality Management (OSLC QM) server.

Base Conformance

This specification is based on [[!OSLCCore3]]. OSLC QM servers MUST be compliant with both the core specification, MUST follow all the mandatory requirements in the normative sections of this specification, and SHOULD follow all the guidelines and recommendations in both these specifications.

An OSLC QM server MUST implement the domain vocabulary defined in OSLC Quality Management Version 2.1. Part 2: Vocabulary

The following table summarizes the requirements from OSLC Core Specification [[!OSLCCore3]] as well as some additional requirements specific to the QM domain. Note that this specification further restricts some of the requirements for OSLC Core Specification. See subsequent sections in this specification or the OSLC Core Specification [[!OSLCCore3]] to get further details on each of these requirements.

Requirement	Level	Meaning
Unknown properties and content	MAY / MUST	OSLC servers MAY ignore unknown content and OSLC clients MUST preserve unknown content
Resource Operations	MUST	OSLC service MUST support resource operations via standard HTTP operations
Resource Paging	MAY	OSLC servers MAY provide paging for resources but only when specifically requested by client
Partial Resource Representations	MAY / MUST	OSLC servers MUST support request for a subset of a resource’s properties via the oslc.properties URL parameter retrieval via HTTP GET
Partial Update	MAY	OSLC services MAY support partial update of resources using patch semantics and MAY support update via HTTP PUT
Discovery	MUST / MAY / SHOULD	OSLC servers MAY provide a Service Provider Catalog, MUST provide a Service Provider resource, and MAY provide other forms of discovery described in Core 3.0 Discovery.
Creation Factories	MAY	OSLC servers MAY provide LDPC creation factories to enable resource creation of Quality Management resources via HTTP POST
Query Capabilities	MUST	OSLC servers MUST provide query capabilities to enable clients to query for resources
Query Syntax	MUST	OSLC query capabilities MUST support the OSLC Core Query Syntax and MAY use other query syntax
Delegated UI Dialogs	MUST / SHOULD	OSLC servers MUST offer delegated UI dialogs (creation and selections) specified via OSLC Core 3.0 Delegated Dialogs and SHOULD include discovery through a ServiceProvider resource and catalog for OSLC v2 compatibility
UI Preview	SHOULD	OSLC servers SHOULD offer UI previews for resources that may be referenced by other resources specified via OSLC Core 3.0 Preview and SHOULD include discovery through a server catalog resource for OSLC v2 compatibility
HTTP Basic Authentication	MAY	OSLC servers MAY support Basic Auth and SHOULD do so only over HTTPS
OAuth Authentication	MAY	OSLC servers MAY support OAuth and can indicate the required OAuth URLs via the ServiceProviderCatalog or ServiceProvider resources
Error Responses	MAY	OSLC servers MAY provide error responses using OSLC Core 3.0 defined error formats
Turtle Representations	MAY	OSLC servers MAY provide a Turtle representation for HTTP GET requests and SHOULD support Turtle representations on POST and PUT requests.
RDF/XML Representations	MUST	OSLC servers MUST provide an RDF/XML representation for HTTP GET requests and SHOULD support RDF/XML representations on POST and PUT requests
XML Representations	MAY	OSLC servers MAY provide a XML representation for HTTP GET, POST and PUT requests that conform to the Core 2.0 Guidelines for XML.
JSON Representations	MAY	OSLC servers MAY provide JSON-LD representations for HTTP GET, POST and PUT requests that conform to the Core Guidelines for JSON-LD
HTML Representations	SHOULD	OSLC servers SHOULD provide HTML representations for HTTP GET requests

Specification Versioning

This specification follows the specification version guidelines given in [[!OSLCCore3]].

Namespaces

In addition to the namespace URIs and namespace prefixes oslc, rdf, dcterms and foaf defined in the [[!OSLCCore3]], OSLC QM defines the namespace URI of http://open-services.net/ns/qm# with a namespace prefix of oslc_qm.

This specification also uses these namespace prefix definitions:

oslc_cm : http://open-services.net/ns/cm# [[OSLCCM]]
oslc_rm : http://open-services.net/ns/rm# [[OSLCRM]]

Resource Formats

In addition to the requirements for resource representations in [[!OSLCCore3]], this section outlines further refinements and restrictions.

For HTTP GET requests on all OSLC QM and OSLC Core defined resource types,

QM servers MAY provide Turtle and JSON-LD, and MUST provide RDF/XML and XML representations. The XML and JSON representations SHOULD follow the guidelines outlined in the OSLC Core Representations Guidance to maintain compatibility with [[!OSLCCore2]].
QM clients requesting RDF/XML MUST be prepared for any valid RDF/XML document. QM clients requesting XML SHOULD be prepared for representations that follow the guidelines outlined in the OSLC Core Representations Guidance.
QM servers SHOULD support an [X]HTML representation and a user interface (UI) preview as defined by UI Preview Guidance

For HTTP PUT/POST request formats for QM resource of type TestPlan, TestCase, TestScript, TestExecutionRecord and TestResult :

QM servers MUST accept Turtle and JSON-LD representations and SHOULD accept RDF/XML and XML representations. QM servers accepting RDF/XML SHOULD be prepared for any valid RDF/XML document. For XML, QM servers SHOULD be prepared for representations that follow the guidelines outlined in the OSLC Core Representations Guidance.

For HTTP GET response formats for Query requests,

QM servers MUST provide Turtle and JSON-LD, SHOULD provide RDF/XML, XML, and MUST provide Atom Syndication Format XML representations.

When QM clients request:

text/turtle QM servers MUST respond with Turtle representation.
application/ld+json QM servers MUST respond with JSON-LD representation.
application/rdf+xml QM servers SHOULD respond with RDF/XML representation without restrictions.
application/xml QM servers SHOULD respond with OSLC-defined abbreviated XML representation as defined in the OSLC Core Representations Guidance
application/atom+xml QM servers SHOULD respond with Atom Syndication Format XML representation as defined in the OSLC Core Representations Guidance
The Atom Syndication Format XML representation SHOULD use RDF/XML representation without restrictions for the atom:content entries representing the resource representations.

See Query Capabilities for additional information when Resource Shapes affect representation.

Authentication

[[!OSLCCore3]] specifies the recommended OSLC authentication mechanisms. In addition to the OSLC Core authentication requirements, OSLC QM services providers SHOULD support [[!OpenIDConnect]].

Error Responses

[[!OSLCCore3]] specifies the OSLC Core error responses. OSLC QM puts no additional constraints on error responses.

Labels for Relationships

QM resource relationships to other resources are represented by RDF properties. Instances of a relationship - often called links - are RDF triples with a subject URI, a predicate that is the property, and a value (or object) that is the URI of target resource. When a link is to be presented in a user interface, it may be helpful to display an informative and useful textual label instead of or in addition to the URI of the predicate and or object. There are three items that clients could display:

The property: OSLC recommends using the rdfs:label property of the rdf:Property from the vocabulary to display the property.
The value, or object of the triple: OSLC recommends using OSLC resource preview [[!OSLCResourcePreview]] to obtain an appropriate icon and label, and possibly a small and/or large dialog for displaying the object.
The link: The link is a combination of the subject, predicate and object of the triple (RDF statement or assertion). In the case where the link requires a unique label that is not available from the target resource, only then OSLC servers may support a dcterms:title on a reified statement to provide a label for a link that describes the assertion itself.

Turtle example using a reified statement:

@prefix oslc_qm: <http://open-services.net/ns/qm#> .
@prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
@prefix dcterms: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> .

<http://example.com/testcase/4321>
  a <http://open-services.net/ns/qm#TestCase> ;
  oslc_qm:usesTestScript <http://anotherexample.com/testscript/123> .

<http://njh.me/#link1>
  a rdf:Statement ;
  rdf:subject <http://example.com/testcase/4321> ;
  rdf:predicate ns0:uses ;
  rdf:object <http://example.com/testscript/123> ;
  dcterms:title "Test Script 123: Request maximum output " .

JSON-LD example using reified statement:

{
  "@context": {
    "dcterms": "http://purl.org/dc/terms/",
    "rdf": "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#",
    "oslc": "http://open-services.net/ns/core#",
    "oslc_qm": "http://open-services.net/ns/qm#"
  },
  "@id": "http://example.com/testscripts/4321",
  "@type": "oslc_qm:TestScript",
  "oslc_cm:relatedChangeRequest": {
    "@id": "http://anotherexample.com/defects/123",
    "dcterms:title": "Defect 123: Problems during install"
  }
}

QM Server Capabilities

Resource Shapes

OSLC QM servers SHOULD support Resource Shapes as defined in [[!OSLCShapes]].

Service Provider Resources

OSLC QM servers MUST support OSLC Discovery capabilities defined by [[!OSLCCore3]].

OSLC QM servers MUST provide a ServiceProvider Resource that can be retrieved at a implementation dependent URI.

OSLC QM servers MUST provide a ServiceProviderCatalog Resource that can be retrieved at a implementation dependent URI.

OSLC QM servers MAY provide a oslc:serviceProvider property for their defined resources that will be the URI to a ServiceProvider Resource.

Creation Factories

OSLC QM servers MUST support [[!OSLCCore3]] Creation Factories and list them in the Service Provider Resource as defined by OSLC Core. OSLC QM servers SHOULD support Resource Shapes for Creation Factories as defined in [[!OSLCShapes]].

Query Capabilities

OSLC QM servers MUST support the Query Capabilities as defined by [[!OSLCCore3]]. OSLC QM servers SHOULD support Resource Shapes for Query Capability as defined in [[!OSLCShapes]].

The Query Capability, if supported, MUST support these parameters:

oslc.where
oslc.select

If shape information is NOT present with the Query Capability, servers SHOULD use these default properties to contain the result:

For RDF/XML and XML, use rdf:Description and rdfs:member as defined in OSLC Core RDF/XML Examples.
For JSON, the query results are contained within oslc:results array. See OSLC Core Representation Guidance for JSON

Delegated UIs

OSLC QM servers MAY support the selection and creation of resources by delegated web-based user interface delegated dialogs Delegated as defined by [[!OSLCCore3]].

OSLC QM servers MAY support the pre-filling of creation dialogs based on the definition [[!OSLCCore3]].

Version Compatibility with 2.0 Specifications

Deprecated terms

A number of terms introduced in early development of the OSLC QM domain that were deprecated in the finalized V2.0. These terms are summarized here in order to indicate they remain deprecated in V2.1.

Prefixed Name	Occurs	Read-only	Value-type	Represen-tation	Range	Description
deprecated dcterms:type	zero-or-more	unspecified	String	n/a	n/a	A short string representation for the type, example `Defect`.
Relationship properties: This grouping of properties are used to identify relationships between resources managed by other OSLC servers
deprecated oslc_cm:testedByTestCase	zero-or-many	False	Resource	Reference	any	Test case by which this Change Request is tested. It is likely that the target resource will be an oslc_qm:TestCase, but that is not necessarily the case.
deprecated oslc_cm:affectsTestResult	zero-or-many	False	Resource	Reference	any	Associated QM resource that is affected by this Change Request. It is likely that the target resource will be an oslc_qm:TestResult, but that is not necessarily the case.
deprecated oslc_cm:blocksTestExecutionRecord	zero-or-many	False	Resource	Reference	any	Associated QM resource that is blocked by this Change Request. It is likely that the target resource will be an oslc_cm:TestExecutionRecord, but that is not necessarily the case.

Version Compatibility with 1.0 Specifications

Media Types

For a resource format identification of RDF/XML and XML, the media type used for this representation SHOULD be application/rdf+xml or application/xml. The usage of the OSLC QM 1.0 defined media types of application/x-oslc-qm-* is being deprecated.

Requesting formats

QM 1.0 consumers wanting to request 1.0 resource formats will not need to change if they used 1.0 defined media types ( application/x-oslc-qm*), see OSLC-QM 1.0. QM 2.0 consumers should use media types as defined in this specification for requests, excluding the OSLC QM 1.0 specific media types ( application/x-oslc-qm*). QM consumers supporting both 1.0 and 2.0, may request request both 1.0 and 2.0 media types on HTTP GET requests as usually done with HTTP request parameter Accept giving appropriate quality (See HTTP Accept) weighting to help distinguish their preferred content.

For additional guidance, a QM 2.0 consumer or provider MAY reference the OSLC-Core-Version HTTP header with a value of 2.0.

Changes from Version 2.0

There are no substantive changes from OSLC QM Specification 2.0. This document is a document maintenance update of the version 2.0 document to support migration from open-services.net to OASIS.The changes are all upward compatible additions and therefore do not introduce incompatibilities with version 2.0.

Specific ommissions for Turtle and JSO were included in Section 2.1 and 2.4.

Clarification over OSLC Core 2.0 Discovery difference with OSLC Core 3.0 in Section 2.1, 4.2 and 4.4.

Revision	Date	Editor	Changes Made
05	18/01/2018	Gray Bachelor	Finalise after closing issues