Skip to content

Scenario Catalog to Fitness Function Pipeline

Run the Scenario to Fitness Function Pipeline MicroSim Fullscreen
Edit in the p5.js Editor

About This MicroSim

This MicroSim makes the connection between ATAM analysis and day-to-day engineering concrete by tracing a single quality attribute scenario through a five-stage pipeline: Scenario Catalog Entry → Risk Assessment → Fitness Function Specification → Implementation → Continuous Monitoring. At each stage the simulator shows the input, the transformation, the output, and the concrete artifact produced for the selected example scenario — so students can follow the architectural traceability chain end to end.

How to Use

  1. Choose an example scenario with the tabs (Performance, Availability, Security).
  2. Click any stage in the pipeline to inspect the input, transform, output, and the concrete artifact that stage produces for the chosen scenario.
  3. Click Run Pipeline ▶ to advance the trace one stage at a time, watching each completed stage gain a ✓ and the active stage marked tracing.
  4. Compare how the same five-stage shape produces a load test, a chaos test, or a security test depending on the quality attribute.

The step-through is intentionally discrete: tracing means examining each transformation, not watching a card glide past.

Iframe Embed Code

You can add this MicroSim to any web page by adding this to your HTML:

<iframe src="https://dmccreary.github.io/atam/sims/scenario-to-fitness-pipeline/main.html"
        width="100%"
        scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Grade Level

Undergraduate / Professional

Duration

10-15 minutes

Prerequisites

Familiarity with quality attribute scenarios, fitness functions, and CI/CD pipelines.

Bloom's Taxonomy Level

Analyze (L4)

Learning Objective

Students will be able to trace a quality attribute scenario through the fitness function pipeline, identifying each transformation step and the artifact produced at each stage.

Activities

  1. Trace (5 min): For the Performance scenario, students step through all five stages and write down the artifact name at each stage.
  2. Compare (5 min): Students switch to the Availability and Security scenarios and identify what changes (the test tool and assertion) and what stays the same (the five-stage shape).
  3. Discussion (5 min): Students explain how the Risk Assessment status (At Risk vs Missing Capability) determines whether a fitness function is even needed.

Assessment

Give students a new scenario ("Search returns results in under 1 second for 95% of queries") and ask them to name the artifact each of the five stages would produce.

References

  1. Bass, L., Clements, P., & Kazman, R. (2021). Software Architecture in Practice (4th ed.). Addison-Wesley.
  2. Ford, N., Parsons, R., & Kua, P. (2017). Building Evolutionary Architectures. O'Reilly. (Fitness functions.)