Demo 25 - Shifting Gears: A Practical Guide to Adopting Spec-Driven Development
As AI coding agents become mainstream, engineering teams are discovering a new problem: freestyle AI generates code without traceability. When the AI writes the code directly from a prompt, how do you answer, "Why was this built this way?" In this session, we will explore Nuvolar's pragmatic journey to Spec-Driven Development (SDD) using the OpenSpec framework. By placing a structured layer of documentation between human requirements and AI output, we transformed our engineering workflow. We will walk through our customized open-spec lifecycle. Most importantly, we will highlight how to keep humans in the driver's seat. You will learn how we implemented mandatory gates to ensure engineers own the architecture and mitigate risks, while the AI agent handles the boilerplate. Finally, we will share our hard-won lessons on what didn’t work, what did and where do we go to now!
