Software Architecture as the Backbone of Software Quality

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Software Quality, SWQD 2026, held in Vienna, Austria, during May 19–21, 2026.The Software Quality Days (SWQD) conference started in 2009 and has grown to become the largest conference on software quality in Europe. The program of the SWQD conference is designed to encompass a stimulating mixture of practical presentations and new research topics in scientific presentations. The guiding conference topic of SWQD 2026 was “Software Architecture as the Backbone of Software Quality".The 6 full papers and 2 short papers included in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 16 submissions. The book also contains one invited talk in full paper length. The papers are organized in topical sections as follows: keynote; process quality and quality assurance; software architecture and design; software development and documentation; and software testing and AI.