Every entry in the Defense records system exists because some decision needed a documented basis, and DD Form 2630 is one of those instruments: DD Form 2630, Software Description Annotated Outline, August 1992, created to Software Description Annotated Outline. The reason it carries a DD number rather than a service designation is structural — the Department maintains a single body of forms for matters that arise identically in every service, so that a record created in one component remains intelligible in another.
The practical effect of Department-level issue is interoperability. not stated establishes the requirement across the Defense enterprise; not stated keeps the document current for all of it. No service maintains its own variant, which means a completed record travels between components — service to agency, agency to joint command — and arrives in a format the receiving office already knows how to read.
Current edition: not stated, status not stated. Understand why that date is worth attention here. When the Department reissues a form, the replacement takes effect across every component simultaneously, so an older copy is not merely locally out of date — it is out of date in every office that might receive it.
Work down the page in the printed order, and understand why the order exists. The identifying block establishes whose record this is and under what circumstances it arises. The body of the form then answers questions that are only meaningful once that context is fixed. The signature block comes last because a certification signed before the entries are complete certifies nothing.
Check the edition date before you type anything, against not stated. Old blanks accumulate in shared drives for years, and the cost of one is not obvious until a reviewer cannot find a field. Because DD forms are revised centrally and replaced across the Department in a single action, there is no component still tolerating the old layout as a local practice.
Unclear entries are resolved from the printed instructions first and from not stated where the two texts diverge.
Download the form
What you can download: PDF. The form runs 4 pages and asks for approximately 183 entries. The plurality of formats is deliberate: Defense distribution has never been able to assume one operating environment across the whole force.
Two states of the same page circulate, and the reason is worth knowing. In the fillable pdf, the boxes are real fields holding real data; in the printable pdf, the boxes are drawings. Where a record will cross components — as Department records regularly do — the typed version is the safer artifact. Each scan, each forwarding, each reproduction costs handwriting a little legibility, and the office that finally files the record is rarely the office that received it first.
What the form asks for
- Section I - Top-level characteristics (above CSCI level). 1. System requirement volatility. a. Level of definition and understanding of system requirements. Press space bar to mark X in first box if very little, second box if questionable, third box if fairly complete, or fourth box if very complete.
- b. How will overall technology advances during development affect the project? X first box if significant advances, second box if between one and three significant modifications, third box if minor modifications, or fourth box if no changes to system or requirements.
- c. Requirements volatility during development. X first box if no changes, second box if small noncritical changes, third box if frequent noncritical changes, fourth box if occasional moderate changes, fifth box if frequent moderate changes, or sixth box if many large changes.
- Additional comments.
- 2. System integration difficulty. a. Expected level of difficulty of integrating and testing the CSCI's to the element level. X first box if very little integration, no complex interfaces, second box if average degree of system integration/interface complexity, third box if several system interfaces, some complex, or fourth box if complex, time-intensive integration process anticipated.
- Additional comments.
- 3. Use of commercial off-the-shelf software. a. Expected impact of integrating software into the system. X first box if some impacts on the design/development effort, second box if few impacts created by the COTS software packages, or third box if no impacts.
- Additional comments.
- Additional comments.
- 4. Software size estimate of CSCIs. (1) Mode. a. Space.
- (2) Total KSLOC estimate: low.
- Most likely.
- High.
- (3) Percent new SLOC.
- (4) Percent reused SLOC.
- (5) Percent modified SLOC.
- (6) Programming languaged used.
- (7) Basis of size estimate (analogy, function points, other).
- (8) Reuse library percent.
- (1) Mode. b. Air.
- (2) Total KSLOC estimate: low.
- Most likely.
- High.
- (3) Percent new SLOC.
The completed form goes to the office named in not stated or in local implementing procedure, and it is worth keeping a copy before it goes. On a Department form the destination is frequently outside your own chain — another service, a defense agency, a joint staff — and recovering a document that has crossed an organizational boundary is a slower business than retrieving one from a file down the hall.
Cross-referenced documents are found by series and number, with nothing further required. That the DD sequence is unified across the Department means a cited number identifies one form and no other, which is the practical payoff of centralizing the numbering in the first place.
It helps to see the DA and DD sequences as what they are: separate registries with separate custodians. One serves a single service under a service proponent, the other serves the Department under not stated or an equivalent office, and neither was ever indexed against the other. A number that appears in both systems points to two unrelated documents, which is why reading the prefix comes before reading the digits.
A form is downstream of the policy that requires it, and revision usually starts there: a directive is reissued, a collection requirement is altered, notice language is updated by statute. The form is republished as a consequence. Since none of that reaches individual users, an archived copy quietly becomes wrong, and verifying not stated each time you download is the whole remedy.
What you have here is the document and a description of it, which is a different thing from guidance. This page is not an organ of the Department, gives no legal or procedural advice, and makes no representation about the outcome of any filing; the offices that administer the requirement are the only ones positioned to answer that. Applicability, eligibility and procedural questions belong to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office designated in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2630?
- DD Form 2630, Software Description Annotated Outline, August 1992
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?