Compliance standards (DO-178C / ISO 26262 / IEC 62304)

adacovex assesses one safety case and re-labels the result for three standards. DO-178C is the avionics software standard, ISO 26262 is the automotive functional-safety standard, and IEC 62304 is the medical-device software lifecycle standard.

Each standard ranks its software by the severity of a failure. DO-178C uses Development Assurance Levels (DAL A to DAL E), ISO 26262 uses Automotive Safety Integrity Levels (ASIL A to ASIL D, plus QM), and IEC 62304 uses software safety classes (A to C). The level names differ, but the evidence does not.

All three standards demand the same four pieces of evidence:

1. Requirement traceability – every high-level requirement (HLR) is traced by a -- HLR-XXXX tag in source.

2. No orphan tags – every tag in source maps to a defined HLR.

3. Tests passing – the suite has zero failures (except at the lowest tier).

4. Minimum SPARK level – the formal-proof bar for the selected rigour tier.

adacovex computes these checks once and re-labels the result per standard. One assessment therefore satisfies every standard at once.

The pages in this category

• DO-178C and the DAL levels – the five DAL levels and the criteria at each level.

• ISO 26262 and the ASIL levels – the ASIL levels and the QM classification.

• IEC 62304 and the safety classes – the three safety classes.

• Selecting a standard and reading the reports – the level flags, --standard=all, and the dashboard and SBOM labels.

When to use which standard

Domain	Standard	CLI flag	Levels
Avionics	DO-178C	--dal=	A, B, C, D, E
Automotive	ISO 26262	--asil=	A, B, C, D, QM
Medical	IEC 62304	--class=	A, B, C

If your project targets several domains, --standard=all runs one assessment and emits badges and reports for every standard without re-scanning.

The shared rigour tier

The three standards share one rigour tier. adacovex maps the levels onto that tier with the default mapping below. The tier placement is a per-project policy choice, because the standards do not define a one-to-one correspondence.

Rigour tier	DO-178C	ISO 26262	IEC 62304	Minimum SPARK	Tests	HLRs
Catastrophic	DAL A	ASIL D	Class C	Gold	Yes	Yes
Hazardous	DAL B	ASIL C	Class B	Silver	Yes	Yes
Major	DAL C	ASIL B	Class A	Bronze	Yes	Yes
Minor	DAL D	ASIL A	–	Stone	Yes	Yes
No safety effect	DAL E	QM	–	–	No	Yes

Use --standard=NAME to select the labelling standard, and --dal=LEVEL to pin the shared rigour tier.

The shared assessment criteria

The four checks are identical across standards. Only the level names change:

1. Requirement traceability – every HLR defined in docs/compliance/HLR.md is traced by a -- HLR-XXXX tag in source.

2. No orphan tags – every in-source HLR tag maps to a defined HLR.

3. Tests passing – zero failures, and the lowest tier does not enforce this check.

4. Minimum SPARK level – the proof bar for the selected rigour tier.

The compliance artifacts are identical too. ISO 26262 and IEC 62304 require no different evidence or documents than DO-178C. The same inputs (docs/compliance/HLR.md, source traceability, the proof summary, and the test summary) feed the same outputs (VERIFICATION.md, TRACE.md, the proof-aware SBOM, and the compliance SVG badges). Only the level label printed inside them changes.

See also

• Selecting a standard and reading the reports – the CLI flags, --standard=all, and the report labels.

• Compliance outputs – VERIFICATION.md, TRACE.md, and the HLR and LLR indexes.

• DAL levels, ASIL levels, and safety classes – the generated reference pages.