Git for Hardware: Version Control as the Foundation for Agile Systems Engineering

CDFAM Computational Design Symposium — DC 2026

Steve Massey · SysGit

Software development was transformed when version control became infrastructure rather than afterthought. Hardware engineering has not had an equivalent transition. Requirements live in documents. System models are stored in vendor-locked platforms. Design reviews happen in meetings rather than pull requests. The result is programs that cannot iterate at the speed the environment demands.

SysGit applies the tools and workflows that scaled software development — branching, merging, diffing, CI/CD pipelines — directly to systems engineering artifacts, built on SysMLv2 and backed by existing Git infrastructure. Requirements, system models, and verification activities are captured in a single machine-readable format, traceable across the full program lifecycle and accessible to every stakeholder from specialist engineers to contracting officers.

This presentation covers the technical architecture behind that approach, the role of agentic AI in automating requirements generation and model validation, and what continuous acquisition looks like when the digital thread is built on open standards rather than walled gardens.

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