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A useful spec spells out the problem to solve, who it is for, the behavior people should see, and how the team will know the work is done. It also records relevant constraints, edge cases, and acceptance criteria. The technical plan comes next: it explains how the team intends to meet the spec, while tasks divide that plan into work that can be implemented and checked.
What belongs in a spec?
A spec captures intent and observable outcomes before implementation begins. It should give developers, product managers, and AI coding agents enough shared context to make decisions without guessing at the goal. Microsoft’s 2026 overview identifies requirements, constraints, acceptance criteria, guardrails, and edge cases as core ingredients of spec-driven development (Microsoft for Developers).
Context and intent
Describe the problem, the intended users, the outcome they need, and why it matters. Naming a feature alone is not enough: “add export” does not say who needs an export, what they need to do with it, or what would make the feature successful. GitHub’s Spec Kit workflow starts by describing what is being built and why, then develops that intent into user journeys and success criteria (GitHub Spec Kit’s SDD concept page).
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Lay out the situations the product must handle and the behavior expected in each. Include the ordinary path as well as meaningful alternatives and failure cases. Requirements are most useful when expressed as externally observable behavior, so a reviewer can tell whether the system meets them without relying on undocumented assumptions.
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Acceptance criteria
For each important requirement, state what would count as satisfying it. Criteria should be concrete enough to guide a test or review, covering normal behavior and important edge cases. There is no single universal format established by the cited guidance; choose a format your team can read, maintain, and verify.
Constraints and guardrails
Record boundaries that the solution must respect, such as security or compliance obligations, supported integrations, design-system rules, performance targets, or a mandated technology. GitHub notes that requirements of this kind can otherwise be scattered across informal sources. Include constraints that affect the outcome; avoid turning the spec into a list of implementation preferences that do not matter to users or the organization.
What belongs in the plan rather than the spec?
The spec describes the required behavior and outcome. The plan translates that intent into technical choices: architecture, technology, flows, and implementation constraints. In GitHub’s Spec Kit walkthrough, stack and architecture are handled during planning, while the specification focuses on user journeys, experience, and success (GitHub Spec Kit documentation).
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This separation is practical, not bureaucratic. A requirement such as “a user can recover an interrupted upload without submitting the file again” describes expected behavior. The plan can then choose the storage and retry approach that will deliver it. Keep the artifacts together or separate them according to your workflow, but make clear which statements define required outcomes and which record a chosen solution.
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When should an interface contract be explicit?
When one component depends on an interface exposed by another, define the observable agreement before building the dependent work. A contract may need to cover:
- Accepted inputs, produced outputs, formats, and validation rules.
- Errors and relevant side effects.
- Behavioral guarantees such as idempotency or ordering, plus retries and timeouts where they apply.
- Compatibility and versioning expectations.
- Examples and criteria for verifying that the interface behaves as agreed.
Match the contract’s detail to the interface. A schema can describe data shape without explaining behavioral semantics such as retry behavior or ordering. The contract should cover what consumers rely on, not expose internal design choices that are not part of the interface. GitHub’s contract-driven guidance also recommends a clear authoritative owner and involving consumers in change agreements (GitHub’s contract-driven development guide).
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How do tasks connect the plan to implementation?
Break the technical plan into small tasks with a clear purpose and a way to check the result. GitHub describes tasks as implementable and testable in isolation. Where useful, connect each task to the requirement it serves and the validation that will confirm it, so the team can trace work back to the intended outcome rather than treating a task list as a separate source of truth.
How does a spec guide the work from start to validation?
Spec-driven development uses linked artifacts across delivery, not a spec that is written once and then ignored. GitHub’s documented core path is Specify → Plan → Tasks → Implement → Converge. Microsoft’s 2026 overview presents an expanded seven-stage formulation that also names principles and guardrails, clarification, and validation. These are workflow examples, not a single mandatory lifecycle.
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- Set principles and guardrails: make relevant team policies and non-negotiable boundaries available.
- Specify: describe the intended behavior, scenarios, requirements, and success conditions.
- Clarify: resolve ambiguity, dependencies, and important edge cases before they become implementation assumptions.
- Plan: choose the technical approach that satisfies the specified outcomes.
- Create tasks: divide the plan into reviewable pieces with verification steps.
- Implement: build the tasks while keeping the specification available as the statement of intent.
- Validate and converge: review the result against requirements and acceptance criteria, then refine where it falls short.
Whether a person or an AI coding agent produces an artifact, review it for omissions and incorrect assumptions. Explicit criteria provide a basis for that review; they do not make review unnecessary.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How much detail should a spec have?
Use enough detail to align the people doing the work and make success verifiable, but do not try to predict every implementation detail before learning what the problem requires. Microsoft recommends starting with a small pilot where alignment problems are visible, formalizing a lightweight spec, reviewing results, and expanding the approach where it adds value (Microsoft for Developers).
Specs, plans, and tasks may need changes as requirements evolve. GitHub’s Spec Kit documentation describes the workflow but does not prescribe how teams should preserve or update those artifacts after changes. Establish who owns each artifact and how dependent plans, tasks, and interface contracts are revised; otherwise, teams risk implementing against outdated intent.
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How can a team judge whether its spec structure is working?
Use these questions as a practical review, not as a published scoring standard:
- Intent: Does the spec say who needs what and why?
- Testability: Can a person or tool verify the acceptance criteria?
- Separation: Can readers distinguish expected behavior from technical decisions?
- Coverage: Are relevant constraints, integrations, and edge cases included?
- Traceability: Can the team connect tasks and validation back to the requirements?
- Change handling: Is ownership clear when requirements or contracts change?
- Proportion: Is the amount of process appropriate to the work’s size and risk?
The cited sources describe intended practices and workflow examples; they do not establish independent quantitative evidence for average productivity, quality, or cost improvements from spec-driven development. Treat claims about benefits as rationale or reported experience, rather than a guaranteed result for every team.
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