Articles

Writing on building with AI

Thoughts on spec-driven development, AI-native workflows, and what it actually takes to ship good software when agents are doing the building.

The loop doesn't know what done looks like.

Loop engineering is the latest term in agentic delivery. But without a spec to validate against, it has exactly the same problem as vibe coding.

Spec-driven development is the right idea. But the spec gets written at the wrong end of the process, by the wrong person, from the wrong source.

AI agents compress build cycles to hours. The coordination checkpoints that kept everyone aligned were designed for days. Something had to give.

AI code merges cleanly. The decision trail doesn't. Six months later, nobody knows why the code is the way it is — and the diff won't tell you.

I've been doing Agile for most of my career. I rediscovered why acceptance criteria matter, somewhat embarrassingly, while building Penling.