apte-toolkit

Functional analysis toolkit — the APTE method codified for hardware, test-bench, and embedded projects. Born from a real industrial test bench refit (medical equipment, 2020) that's still in production 6 years later. Frame the spec before the build.

What's inside

File	Purpose
METHODOLOGY.md	APTE in 5 minutes — bête à cornes → diagramme d'interactions → FP/FC → flexibility classes F0-F3.
TEMPLATE.md	Empty skeleton to copy into any new project. Fill in the blanks.
EXAMPLE.md	Real filled example (anonymized) — based on a unified pneumatic + electrical test bench delivered in 2020.

Why APTE

APTE (Application des Techniques d'Entreprise) is a French functional-analysis method used in industrial engineering. It forces you to answer three questions before writing a single spec:

1. Who does the product serve?
2. What does it act on?
3. In what purpose does it exist?

Then it structures the rest of the spec around principal functions (FP) and constraint functions (FC), each rated with a flexibility class (F0 = imperative → F3 = highly negotiable).

The result : you stop building stuff that "kinda works" and start shipping stuff that meets a written, agreed-upon set of needs.

When to use it

• Before any test bench project (the original use case)
• Before any embedded system with a real-world stakeholder
• Before any instrumentation / measurement rig
• Before any product where requirements are fuzzy and the team needs to align fast

Quick start

Option A — one-liner via curl :

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/enyolanev-bit/apte-toolkit/main/TEMPLATE.md
mv TEMPLATE.md SPEC.md
# Edit SPEC.md, fill in FP/FC, define flexibility per criterion. Done.

Option B — via the CLI (clone the repo, then run apte init in any project) :

git clone https://github.com/enyolanev-bit/apte-toolkit.git ~/apte-toolkit

cd my-new-project/
python3 ~/apte-toolkit/cli/apte.py init
# wrote /Users/me/my-new-project/SPEC.md

In both cases : you end up with a SPEC.md ready to fill. That's a written agreement with yourself (or your team) before any code is written.

Origin / case study

This toolkit codifies the method used in 2020 to design a unified pneumatic + electrical test bench for a French distributor of dental equipment. Before the redesign: two physically-separated benches, 3h50 total test time, missed procedure steps. After : one bench, 3-position selector switch, ~500 € budget, still in production 6 years later.

Full case study (anonymized) : banc-test-2020 (companion repo).

License

MIT — Nevil Bofumbo, 2026. Use freely.