Agentic Engineering & ToolingDeep Dive180min
From Developer to Builder: A Spec-Driven Development Deep Dive
Spec-Driven Development uses specifications, not prompts, to guide AI coding agents. This deep dive shows how to build and evolve applications by writing specs, generating code, testing against requirements, and updating specs when needs change. It covers harness design, practical use, limits, and adoption on your own stack.
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Simon MartinelliMartinelli GmbH
Spec-Driven Development is a way of working with AI coding agents where the specification drives the code, not the prompt. I use Spec-Driven Development according to the AI Unified Process (AIUP) in several customer projects, and in this deep dive, I show how it works in practice.
We will build a business application from scratch, and also learn how to work on brownfield projects. We write specifications, let an AI agent generate the code, run it, and add tests that check the code against the spec. When the requirements change, we update the spec and regenerate the code rather than patching the code by hand.
We will explore the harness: the rules, context, and tests around the agent that keep its output predictable enough for real work. By the end, you will know what Spec-Driven Development is, where it helps, where it does not, and how to try it on your own stack.
We will build a business application from scratch, and also learn how to work on brownfield projects. We write specifications, let an AI agent generate the code, run it, and add tests that check the code against the spec. When the requirements change, we update the spec and regenerate the code rather than patching the code by hand.
We will explore the harness: the rules, context, and tests around the agent that keep its output predictable enough for real work. By the end, you will know what Spec-Driven Development is, where it helps, where it does not, and how to try it on your own stack.
Simon Martinelli
Simon Martinelli is a Java Champion, Vaadin Champion, and Oracle ACE Pro with over three decades of experience as a software architect, developer, consultant, and trainer. He is the creator of the AI Unified Process (AIUP) and a strong advocate of Spec-Driven Development.
As the owner of Martinelli LLC, he coaches teams to get up to speed with AI-driven development. He regularly shares his insights through international conferences, articles, and his blog, Keep IT Simple (https://martinelli.ch), where he writes about AI, architecture, and modern Java development.
He is also a lecturer at two universities in Switzerland, where he teaches software architecture, persistence, DevOps, and cloud-native development.
As the owner of Martinelli LLC, he coaches teams to get up to speed with AI-driven development. He regularly shares his insights through international conferences, articles, and his blog, Keep IT Simple (https://martinelli.ch), where he writes about AI, architecture, and modern Java development.
He is also a lecturer at two universities in Switzerland, where he teaches software architecture, persistence, DevOps, and cloud-native development.