Part
Spec
You might say: specification, PRD, intent
A written description of the shared design concept: what a piece of work must do and how anyone will know it is done. It carries the intent across sessions, so the author run, the verifier and the person all work toward the same target.
- What it does
- Gives verification a target that exists before the code does.
- Ask
- Does the spec say what must be true when the work is done, in terms a scenario can check?
What to look for
- A spec or PRD file linked from the ticket
- Acceptance criteria written as statements a test can check
- Out-of-scope notes and open questions
Catalogue: Spec technique
- Grilling: The agent interviews the person one decision at a time and delays the handoff artifact until the design concept stabilises. Use it when the open questions are decisions a person can settle in conversation.
- Prototyping: The agent builds a quick, rough version when conversation is too low-fidelity, so the person can react to a real artifact. Use it when a question needs a real artifact to answer, such as how an interaction feels or whether an API shape reads well in calling code.
Sources
- Matt Pocock, AI Coding Dictionary, Spec
A handoff artifact describing a multi-session piece of work
- Justin McCarthy (StrongDM), Software Factories And The Agentic Moment, Software Factories And The Agentic Moment
non-interactive development where specs + scenarios drive agents that write code, run harnesses, and converge without human review.
- Delinea, The Delinea Software Factory: Building Software with AI, The Delinea Software Factory
Humans define intent: what the system should do, the scenarios it needs to handle, the constraints that matter.
- Dan Shapiro, The Five Levels: from Spicy Autocomplete to the Dark Factory, Level 4
You write a spec. You argue with it about the spec. … Then you leave for 12 hours, and check to see if the tests pass.
- Matt Pocock, AI Coding Dictionary, Design concept
The shared understanding of what's being built, held in common between user and agent but separate from any asset.
Use it on your project
teardown-apply: hold "Spec" (spec) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/software-factory/ against my project
Paste it into a coding agent that has the teardown skills.
An AI agent wrote this map with the teardown skill. It can contain errors: check the sources before you rely on a part. About and legal