Our quest to build the right software has always relied on more than the implementation itself. Test-Driven Development uses automated tests to define what our code should do before we build it. Behavior-Driven Development builds on those ideas, expressing expected behavior in language relevant to the business and validating that what we build meets its requirements. These guardrails have been around long before generative AI entered the collective consciousness.

But what happens when coding agents allow us to turn ideas into working software dramatically faster? How do we make sure that requirements, design, architecture, and implementation are all moving in the right direction? Is the vibe enough when the code alone can't tell us what we intended to build?

In this session, you'll learn about Spec-Driven Development (SDD), an evolving approach that turns software intent into versioned, structured artifacts that coding agents can use to plan and implement software. We'll explore and compare approaches including GitHub Spec Kit and OpenSpec, and see how specifications move from requirements through planning, implementation, and verification. From there, we'll look at agent skills, IDE and command-line workflows, and how SDD can fit alongside standard engineering practices such as source control, testing, and CI/CD.

We'll walk through a greenfield example using a reproducible, containerized development environment defined with Dev Containers. We'll also consider what changes when introducing SDD to an existing codebase. You'll leave with a good understanding of where SDD can provide familiar guardrails, where it may simply add unnecessary ceremony, and how you can begin experimenting with it in your own development workflow.

This session is intended as a practical introduction to Spec-Driven Development for software developers, architects, technical leads, and others interested in applying coding agents within a structured software development process. The session is best suited for an intermediate audience, but no prior experience with SDD, GitHub Spec Kit, or OpenSpec is required. Familiarity with common software development practices such as source control, automated testing, and CI/CD will be helpful. Some familiarity with AI-assisted coding or coding agents is useful but not required.

The session focuses on SDD as a software development practice rather than on any particular AI model or coding agent. GitHub Spec Kit and OpenSpec are used as representative examples of current approaches, and IDE and command-line tooling will be demonstrated where appropriate. Examples will run in a containerized development environment using Dev Containers; prior experience with containers or Dev Containers is not required.

This session has not previously been presented at a public conference. All of my sessions are designed to encourage audience participation (to the extent possible given the specific venue), with planned discussion points throughout to keep attendees engaged. I am an experienced conference speaker, with prior appearances at CodeMash, Agile2019, Stir Trek, and other regional technology conferences. The focus of my sessions is on practical instruction combined with an engaging, audience-centered delivery style. No special technical requirements beyond standard presentation capabilities.