A claim that I’ve seen on software social media is that spec-driven development is evidence that agile was a dark path, poorly chosen. The argument goes that Agile software development is about eschewing detailed designs and specifications, in favour of experimentation and feedback. Spec-driven development shows that the way to unlock maximal productivity in augmented development (and therefore in development overall, as LLM agents can type faster than programmers can) is by writing detailed specifications for the code generator to follow. Therefore detailed specifications are valuable after all, so Agile was wrong to do away with them.
Let’s take a look at what’s going on in—and behind—this argument.
Agile is alleged to eschew detailed specification.
It certainly looks that way, on a quick glance. As Brian Marick noted, one of the Agile Alliance didn’t care what was in the manifesto so long as there was no way IBM or Rational agreed with it. The people who came together for that skiing holiday in Utah were coaches and practitioners of ‘lightweight methodologies’, that favoured early delivery of working software to the customer over detailed product requirements documents, and design specifications, that the customer reviews and signs off before they ever see any code—indeed before any developer is allowed to begin coding.
The reason for this isn’t to create unspecified software. It’s to discover the specification through iterative feedback. If you compare the output of a team that follows Agile software development with one that follows a then-prevailing methodology, such as the Rational Unified Process (RUP) that irked one of the alliance members, you’d probably learn that the agile team actually has a much more detailed specification.
In addition, that spec is machine-readable, executable, and generates errors whenever the software falls out of conformance. The specification these teams produce through their emergent process is the test suite. If every software change follows the creation of a failing test, then all of the software—every feature, every bug fix—is specified in a detailed document.
Three evident differences between the ‘specs’ in something like RUP, and something agile:
- The agile spec’s format is closer to working software, which is what the customers ultimately value.
- The agile spec has no ambiguity: the software meets the spec and the test passes; or it doesn’t, and the test fails.
- The agile spec evolves throughout the life of the software endeavour, capturing elements of a dialectic between creators, customers, and software. Meanwhile, according to figure 1.5 in The Unified Software Development Process, ‘rational’ developers finish elaboration at an early point in the project and move on to filling in the details.
And one big difference between the purpose of the tests: RUP creates tests for verification: did we build it right in the implementation phase? Agile teams create tests that also supply validation: do we understand what we’re being asked to build?
Aside: the “specs” in spec-driven development occupy the same conceptual space as tests created to drive out design.
A developer listens to a description of behaviour that their software should embody, and writes a test to drive out the details and confirm they understand the situation. When happy that the test represents a description of the code they need to create, they write the code.
A developer listens to a description of behaviour that their software should embody, and writes a document to drive out the details and confirm they understand the situation. When happy that the document represents a description of the code they need to create, they create the code.
These are the same statement, made at different levels of abstraction with respect to the tools the developer uses. In other words, the people are doing the same thing, using different tools. If you “have come to value individuals and interactions over processes and tools”, then you will probably think that there is some value in the tools; but not as much as there is value in their application. Speaking of which…
The agile manifesto says that the alliance members value specifications.
The template statement in the manifesto is “[blah blah blah] we have come to value x over y. That is, while there is value in ys:[y], we value xs:[x] more.”
The instance that’s immediately relevant to the spec-driven development argument is x = working software; y = comprehensive documentation, where detailed specification is an example of comprehensive documentation (particularly in the prolix style adopted by many of the models). Performing the substitution, detailed specification is indeed valuable, but not as an end in itself: it is (or can be) useful in pursuit of delivering valuable software.
Agile software development isn’t about not doing things; it’s about understanding why you do anything, and being ready to try something else in pursuit of your goal. With the constraint that your goal needs to be “early and continuous delivery of valuable software”.
Returning to the aside, above, x = individuals and interactions and y = processes and tools. Spec-driven development is a process, generative AI is a tool; the point isn’t to use or avoid either, they can be valuable in the pursuit of working software.
Agile software development was about who makes software and how.
The comparison between RUP and lightweight methodologies made above was particularly apposite at the moment the manifesto for Agile software development was created; a single moment that highlighted a tension in a dichotomy. It isn’t the opposition of documentation and software, or change and plans. It’s the opposition of practitioner-led versus managerial software development.
The summary of the principles behind the manifesto is approximately ‘get people who know what they’re doing, let them talk to the customer and give the customer software, then get out of their way’. The list has an emphasis on technical excellence, simplicity, customer collaboration, and—crucially—self-organisation, all seconded to the ‘highest priority’ of customer satisfaction through valuable software, with ‘working software’ as the primary measure of progress.
In other words, we promise to make software, if you promise to let us.
The prevailing, heavyweight processes were predicated on a breakdown of this compact. Managers don’t trust developers not to gold-plate software for its own sake, continually polishing but never shipping. Therefore, it’s up to managers to work out what needs to be done and to keep developers’ noses pressed to the code face until they do it.
Bring that up to date, and every software organisation now pays lip service to agile software development, and yet the opposition between practitioner-led and managerial software development still exists. When developers of the 2020s complain about agile, they typically complain about facets of managerial agile: valueless ceremonial meetings; OKRs as the primary measure of progress; and perpetual sprinting with no warm-ups, cool-downs, or rests.
All of which is to say that the story of practitioner-driven software development remains partially told, and that whether spec-driven development contributes to its continuation is only a small part of the question; a question that remains open-ended.
