Move Beyond Vibe Coding: Spec-Driven Development With AI Agents
Chat-first coding is great for quick spikes, but it breaks down on real work that has to last. Teams are moving to spec-driven development to keep context, ship faster and protect quality. Using the tool Kiro, an AWS team cut a two-week notification feature to just two days.
What Is Spec-Driven Development?
Spec-driven development is a structured way to build software with agentic AI. It replaces ad-hoc prompts with clear artifacts that guide the work and persist over time. The result: fewer surprises, cleaner handoffs and a trail of reasoning your team can trust.
- Requirements Definition: Capture goals, functional and non-functional needs, user scenarios, constraints and acceptance criteria before any code.
- Design Planning: Decide how components interact, tech choices, scaling strategy, security posture and maintainability options.
- Structured Implementation: Break work into discrete tasks with dependencies and a clear "definition of done." Each task builds on the last and keeps the big picture intact.
Unlike vibe coding, this method produces reviewable artifacts that survive beyond a single chat thread. Context stays put, even when people switch tasks or weeks pass.
Should You Be Vibe Coding?
For prototypes, small fixes and tech exploration, vibe coding is excellent. You can test ideas, try new stacks and get feedback fast.
The pain shows up on larger features and systems that need to scale. Long chat sessions drift, intent gets fuzzy and decisions go untracked. That's fine for a toy app, risky for production.
Why Specs Make AI Agents More Effective
Agents work best with clear targets, constraints and evidence they can reference. Specs give them stable ground: inputs, outputs, edge cases and links to code they can analyze.
If you want a framework to sanity-check your plans, the AWS Well-Architected Framework and the Twelve-Factor App are solid lenses for system quality.
Case Study: Kiro Turned Two Weeks Into Two Days
An AWS team needed real-time notifications for task completion across multiple operating systems. Historically, that kind of feature chewed up two weeks due to platform differences and limited bandwidth.
With spec-driven development and Kiro, the team shipped in two days. Kiro scanned the codebase, surfaced cross-platform hurdles, suggested libraries and produced a solution that slotted into the existing architecture. Research that would usually take a full day happened in one shot because the spec framed the problem clearly.
Speed was only part of the win. The upfront spec forced clarity on edge cases and maintenance costs, so the final result was easier to keep healthy.
When To Use Each Method
- Use specs for major features, architectural shifts and new system components.
- Use vibe coding for local iterations, refactors and experimentation after the foundation is set.
The combo works: specs set direction; vibe coding helps you refine without losing the thread.
How To Put Spec-Driven Development In Play This Week
- Create a one-page requirements brief template: problem statement, users, success metrics, functional and non-functional needs, constraints, acceptance tests.
- Draft a lightweight design doc: component diagram, interfaces, data model, failure modes, security notes, trade-offs and open questions.
- Plan implementation as numbered tasks with dependencies and a "definition of done." Give agents the full spec, repo links and test data for each task.
- Store artifacts in your repo (docs/). Link every PR to a Spec ID. Update the spec when reality changes.
- Add review gates: requirements review, design review and a short demo before rollout.
- Track impact: lead time, defect escape rate and rework hours. Compare spec-driven vs. chat-only work.
Tooling Tips
- Use agents that can read your repo, write docs and propose diffs. Kiro is one example.
- Pin context by referencing Spec IDs and doc paths in every prompt and ticket.
- Auto-generate test plans, retry policies and rollback notes from the spec to reduce toil.
- Wire notifications and documentation updates to your CI so context stays current.
The Human Element Still Matters
AI won't set product priorities or trade security for speed with good judgment. That's on you. Keep design reviews and code reviews in place; let agents handle boilerplate and research while you handle decisions.
The Shift Underway
As AI coding tools mature, the winning teams will keep structure, keep reviews and move faster without paying a debt later. Specs make that possible by preserving context, guiding agents and making work traceable.
If you want training for your team on practical AI-assisted development, check out these resources: AI Certification for Coding and AI Tools For Generative Code.
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