PICKLES: a Natural Language Framework for Requirement Specification and Model-Based Testing
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| author | Rodríguez, María Belén Bos, Petra van den |
| author_facet | Rodríguez, María Belén Bos, Petra van den |
| contents | This paper combines methods from the fields of Model-Based Testing (MBT) and Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD) to define a testing approach with human-readable specifications and test cases, as in BDD, while using the modelling techniques and automatic test generation algorithms from MBT. We introduce PICKLES, a Precise Input and Control-flow Keyword-based Language for tEst Scenarios; an extension of Gherkin-style BDD scenarios, specified in structured natural language. We provide a bi-directional translation from Pickles scenarios to formal models, where both specifications and tests are human-readable, and a method to obtain a so-called master model combining all translated scenarios. Standard MBT algorithms can then be applied to automatically derive test cases from it. We implement a prototype of the translation and composition steps, which we use on an industrial case study: a software component from a traffic management system. With it, we illustrate the pipeline and show how Pickles can achieve significantly higher coverage with respect to BDD from the same set of scenarios. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_26572 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | PICKLES: a Natural Language Framework for Requirement Specification and Model-Based Testing Rodríguez, María Belén Bos, Petra van den Software Engineering D.2.5; D.2.1 This paper combines methods from the fields of Model-Based Testing (MBT) and Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD) to define a testing approach with human-readable specifications and test cases, as in BDD, while using the modelling techniques and automatic test generation algorithms from MBT. We introduce PICKLES, a Precise Input and Control-flow Keyword-based Language for tEst Scenarios; an extension of Gherkin-style BDD scenarios, specified in structured natural language. We provide a bi-directional translation from Pickles scenarios to formal models, where both specifications and tests are human-readable, and a method to obtain a so-called master model combining all translated scenarios. Standard MBT algorithms can then be applied to automatically derive test cases from it. We implement a prototype of the translation and composition steps, which we use on an industrial case study: a software component from a traffic management system. With it, we illustrate the pipeline and show how Pickles can achieve significantly higher coverage with respect to BDD from the same set of scenarios. |
| title | PICKLES: a Natural Language Framework for Requirement Specification and Model-Based Testing |
| topic | Software Engineering D.2.5; D.2.1 |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.26572 |