automotiveDevSecOpscompliance

Integrating RocqStat into DevSecOps for Automotive Compliance

bbitbox

2026-02-13

9 min read

Add RocqStat WCET analysis to your DevSecOps pipeline to produce reproducible, audit-ready timing evidence for ISO 26262 and UN regulations in 2026.

Why timing verification and WCET belong inside your DevSecOps pipeline (now)

Pain point: automotive teams face fragmented toolchains, unpredictable timing behavior in real-time features, and audits that demand reproducible evidence. Adding worst-case execution time (WCET) and timing verification late in the lifecycle creates rework, missed release dates, and nonconformities against ISO 26262 / UN regulations.

In 2026 the landscape changed: Vector Informatik announced the acquisition of StatInf's RocqStat technology on January 16, 2026, signaling a stronger move to integrate WCET analysis into mainstream verification toolchains like VectorCAST. That acquisition makes a practical, pipeline-first approach realistic for teams building safety-critical automotive software.

Executive summary — what you’ll get from this article

Concrete steps to integrate RocqStat timing/WCET analysis into CI/CD.
Example pipeline stages, artifact strategies, and PR gating to enforce timing contracts.
How to connect timing outputs to ISO 26262, ISO/SAE 21434, and UN R155/R156 audit evidence.
Operational tactics for multicore, interrupts, and RTOS jitter challenges.

The 2026 context: why timing verification is an operational imperative

Recent industry signals make timing verification strategically urgent for automotive organizations:

Tool consolidation — Vector’s acquisition of StatInf (RocqStat) shows timing analysis is moving into mainstream toolchains rather than niche research stacks.
Regulatory pressure — UN R155 cybersecurity and UNECE safety regulations increasingly require demonstrable, documented verification artifacts (timing is often part of safety arguments).
Cloud & sovereignty trends — teams are standardizing pipelines across hybrid/sovereign clouds (e.g., EU sovereign regions in 2025–26). Audit artifacts must be reproducible across these environments.
Operational scale — software-defined vehicles increase the amount and complexity of real-time code, pushing WCET from academic to business-critical.

High-level integration pattern: DevSecOps + RocqStat

Make WCET and timing verification a non-blocking, automated part of the development lifecycle by shifting it left and automating evidence collection. The canonical pattern is:

Instrument & model: Create platform timing models and build artifacts that RocqStat can analyze.
Gated analysis: Run fast static timing checks in PR pipelines for regressions; run full WCET estimation in nightly or release pipelines.
Trace & measure: Complement static WCET with on-target measurements to calibrate models and provide runtime evidence.
Package evidence: Store signed WCET reports, coverage data, and trace logs as immutable artifacts linked to release metadata for audits.

Where RocqStat fits

RocqStat provides static WCET estimation and timing analysis that can be invoked as a CLI/SDK step in pipelines. With Vector planning integration into VectorCAST, teams can expect tighter coupling with test-case coverage and verification artifacts — but the same principles apply even before full integration: treat RocqStat runs like any other verification task (unit test, static analysis, fuzzing).

Actionable pipeline design: example CI/CD workflow

Below is a practical, actionable pipeline layout you can adopt now. Replace tool names with your stack (GitLab/GitHub Actions/Jenkins/ArgoCD).

Pipeline stages and responsibilities

pre-commit — lightweight static checks: compiler warnings, MISRA, and a quick timing sanity check (fast RocqStat profile on hot paths).
merge request / PR — gating: run unit tests, functional tests, and a PR-level RocqStat timing regression job that compares WCET deltas against a threshold.
nightly — full WCET run: exhaustive analysis across configurations, hardware models, and RTOS settings. Generate full reports and artifacts.
release — audit bundle: signed WCET report(s), runtime traces, test coverage evidence, SBOM, and a traceability matrix linking code, requirements, and tests.

Sample GitLab CI job (simplified)

stages:
  - build
  - test
  - wcet

build:
  stage: build
  script:
    - make CROSS_COMPILE=arm-none-eabi- all
  artifacts:
    paths: [build/*.elf]

wcet_pr_check:
  stage: wcet
  script:
    - ./tools/rocqstat-cli analyze --input build/moduleA.elf --config timing-models/boardA.yml --fast
    - ./tools/rocqstat-cli export --format json --output reports/wcet_pr.json
    - python tools/check_wcet_threshold.py reports/wcet_pr.json --baseline artifacts/baseline_wcet.json --threshold 1.1
  only:
    - merge_requests
  artifacts:
    paths: [reports/wcet_pr.json]

This example uses a fast mode for PRs and a stricter full-run later. The script that checks the threshold exits non-zero if a regression would break timing contracts, blocking the merge.

Technical details and best practices

1) Build reproducibility and deterministic inputs

WCET estimates are only as credible as the inputs. Ensure your pipeline produces deterministic binaries by:

Fixing compiler/toolchain versions with container images or reproducible build systems (Nix, Guix, Bazel).
Committing or versioning the timing model files and microarchitectural parameters used by RocqStat.
Storing the specific tool binary (RocqStat CLI version) with the build artifact to enable future re-analysis.

2) Hardware models and calibration

Static WCET requires accurate CPU/board models. Operational steps:

Create a hardware model repo per ECU board containing cache, pipeline, and bus timing parameters.
Perform periodic calibration runs on representative hardware to adjust latency parameters; store calibration artifacts in the pipeline. Consider running larger calibration batches in hybrid environments and cloud hardware farms similar to the device coverage you might read about in CES reports (see tool and device roundups).
Automate calibration acceptance as part of nightly runs; a drift triggers a recalibration workflow.

3) Multicore and interference management

Multicore systems introduce interference and make WCET conservative. Options:

Use isolation strategies (core partitioning, time partitioning) to reduce inter-core interference for safety-critical tasks.
Adopt Response Time Analysis (RTA) and system-level schedulability checks that combine WCET with scheduling constraints.
Where possible, run RocqStat per core with models that include interference parameters; document the assumptions explicitly.

4) RTOS jitter, interrupts, and hypervisor impacts

Include RTOS scheduling behavior and interrupt latencies in your timing model. Practical mitigations:

Model worst-case interrupt disabling times and context-switch latencies.
If using hypervisors, include hypercall and VM switch costs; prefer partitioning for critical tasks.
Document configuration pins (tick rates, priority ceilings) in your compliance artifact bundle.

Linking timing evidence to standards and audits

Auditors ask for traceability, reproducibility, and justification. Make your timing pipeline produce the right artifacts automatically:

WCET report (signed): the static estimate, inputs used (binary, tool version, timing model), and an executive summary mapping to requirement IDs.
Test & trace evidence: on-target execution traces, Coverage and test vectors used to exercise code paths.
Traceability matrix: link requirement → code → tests → WCET claim. Produce as CSV/HTML and store alongside the release. Use artifact-storage best practices and consider storage cost implications covered in broader operational guides.
Calibration reports: hardware calibration logs demonstrating model accuracy.
Change logs: diffs of timing model and code that led to WCET deltas between releases.

Mapping to standards

ISO 26262: Use WCET evidence to support timing-related safety goals and ASIL decomposition decisions (document the analysis scope and assumptions).
ISO/SAE 21434 & UN R155: Include timing evidence in cybersecurity and safety management systems where timing affects attack surfaces or safety constraints.
UNECE R155/R156: Provide traceable, reproducible artifacts as part of type approval or cybersecurity management evidence.

Audit-ready practices and how pipelines simplify reviews

Audits focus on repeatability. DevSecOps pipelines enable:

Reproducible runs — every WCET report corresponds to a specific commit, tool image, and timing model stored in the artifact repository.
Signed artifacts — use code-signing and supply-chain signatures (Sigstore, TUF) to show artifacts haven’t been tampered with.
Automated traceability — generate the requirement-to-evidence map every release to reduce manual auditor requests.

Operational KPIs and guardrails

Track these metrics to keep timing risk under control:

WCET change rate per PR (percent change vs baseline)
Number of PRs blocked by timing regression per week
Calibration drift events per quarter
Audit evidence generation time (time to produce a full evidence bundle)

Case study sketch — integrating RocqStat at scale (fictionalized but practical)

Team: Tier-1 supplier building ADAS ECU software with mixed-criticality tasks.

Baseline: Unit tests and MISRA checks in place; timing checked manually.
Phase 1 — pilot: Add RocqStat CLI to nightly pipeline. Generate WCET reports and store them as artifacts. Run quick PR checks in fast mode.
Phase 2 — scale: Automate hardware calibration and add trace capture on a hardware farm. Implement a merge rule that blocks PRs with >5% WCET regression on hot paths.
Phase 3 — audit: Create automated evidence bundle (WCET reports, traces, SBOM, and the traceability matrix) for type-approval submission. Use signed artifacts and provide a replay script so auditors can re-run analysis in an isolated environment — align this with your incident and platform-resilience playbooks.

Outcome: Faster release cycles, fewer surprises at audit time, and a reproducible evidence workflow that reduced audit clarification requests by >60% in the pilot group.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Pitfall: Treating WCET as a one-off. Fix: Automate and make it a pipeline first-class citizen.
Pitfall: Incomplete models (missing RTOS/hypervisor effects). Fix: Maintain hardware and OS models and calibrate with measurements.
Pitfall: Storing reports ad-hoc. Fix: Use immutable artifact storage and sign artifacts for auditability. Consider storage cost guidance for long-term retention.
Pitfall: No KPIs. Fix: Track regressions and calibration drift to detect process decay early.

Advanced strategies and future-proofing (2026+)

As of 2026, expect these trends and plan accordingly:

Tighter toolchain consolidation: With RocqStat headed into Vector’s ecosystem, integrated verification workflows (unit test → timing → coverage) will become the norm. Think about adopting composable tooling and platform patterns used across industries.
Cloud-assisted calibration: Hybrid strategies will let you run large calibration and model-fitting batches in sovereign cloud regions to meet data locality rules and scale hardware coverage.
Formal-combo approaches: Combining static WCET with formal path analysis and model checking improves confidence on ASIL-D systems.
AI-assisted anomaly detection: Use ML to detect surprising WCET deltas and triage root cause faster — similar AI-assisted detection approaches are emerging in adjacent domains for anomaly spotting.

Practical checklist to implement this week

Inventory timing-sensitive modules and prioritize hot paths for WCET analysis.
Standardize build images and commit a RocqStat CLI image into your pipelines.
Create a minimal timing model for your primary ECU board and commit it to the repo.
Add a PR-level RocqStat job in fast mode with a threshold checker to block regressions.
Automate nightly full WCET runs and store signed reports and inputs as artifacts (plan for storage and retention costs).
Create an audit-bundle generator that packages reports, traces, SBOM, and the traceability matrix. Evaluate available tools and run a pilot with a simple evidence pack generator or a local tool roundup.

Closing — why this approach simplifies audits and reduces risk

Integrating RocqStat-style WCET analysis into a DevSecOps pipeline turns timing verification from an intermittent engineering task into a reproducible, auditable part of your product lifecycle. By producing deterministic binaries, signed artifacts, calibration evidence, and traceability, teams can answer auditor inquiries quickly and demonstrate compliance to ISO 26262, ISO/SAE 21434, and UNECE regulations.

Remember: auditors don’t audit intentions — they audit reproducible evidence. Make that evidence part of every pipeline run.

Actionable next step (call-to-action)

If you’re ready to turn timing verification into a repeatable part of your DevSecOps workflow, start with a 2-week pilot: we’ll help you add RocqStat CLI to your CI, create reproducible build images, and deliver an audit-ready evidence bundle for one ECU. Contact bitbox.cloud for a technical workshop and pipeline assessment tailored to your toolchain.

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