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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsSpec-as-source fails when a team treats “the spec is the source of truth” as a maintenance plan. A specification can be authoritative by policy and still be wrong about deployed behavior. To keep it useful, define what it covers, make its requirements testable, trace implementation and tests back to those requirements, and decide how disagreements will be resolved.
What “spec-as-source” means—and what it does not
Spec-driven development (SDD) uses written specifications to guide planning, implementation, and validation. But the phrase covers distinct workflows, and whether a spec stays useful depends on which one a team adopts.
| Lifecycle model | How it works | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Spec-first | Write a specification before coding; it may be discarded afterward. GitHub Spec Kit’s persistence guidance describes this as useful when the spec is mainly a planning aid. | If the document is discarded, it cannot serve as a continuing record of system intent. |
| Spec-anchored | Keep the specification after implementation and use it to guide future changes. Spec Kit’s guidance describes this as a living specification. | The team must reconcile it with implementation changes so it continues to describe intended behavior. |
| Spec-as-source | Treat the specification as the only human-edited source and regenerate implementation artifacts from it. Spec Kit’s guidance distinguishes this from keeping a spec alongside independently edited code. | It works best when the modeled contract is bounded and generation is dependable. Decisions and behavior outside that model do not become authoritative just because the spec does. |
These models are not interchangeable. A team can write a useful spec-first plan without claiming that the document is a durable system contract. Conversely, calling a document the source of truth does not ensure that changes discovered during implementation or after release make their way back into it.
Why a spec can diverge from production
Silent drift occurs when actual behavior changes but the specification is neither updated nor explicitly marked as lagging. A document can still look current while no longer describing what the system does. The SDD Labs overview of spec/code drift identifies the underlying problem: the artifacts disagree, and the disagreement is not visible to people relying on the spec.
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- An incident fix changes a behavior, but the corresponding criterion stays untouched.
- Implementation uncovers an edge case or constraint that the original spec did not account for.
- A refactor or deletion changes behavior that the specification still promises.
- Code meets a criterion in a way the spec’s author did not intend, because the criterion was too vague to distinguish acceptable outcomes.
- A generated implementation is edited by hand, without a process for feeding the change back into its source.
There is also a subtler risk: agreement between generated code and generated tests is not independent confirmation if both came from the same mistaken assumption. A passing test proves that the implementation matches that test, not necessarily that either matches the right requirement.
Choose a maintenance model that fits the contract
Generation is not an all-or-nothing choice. The useful question is whether a particular part of the system can be described precisely enough that regenerating its artifacts is safer than maintaining them independently.
Generate bounded, machine-readable contracts
HTTP API descriptions are a strong example. The OpenAPI Specification 3.0.4 describes a language-agnostic interface for HTTP APIs and explains that tools can use an OpenAPI Description to generate documentation, server and client code, and tests. An API surface is often more mechanically describable than every business rule, organizational decision, or production behavior in an application. Use generation where the contract and tooling support it; do not infer that every product requirement belongs in a generative spec.
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Keep a living spec beside code when discovery matters
If implementation work frequently reveals new constraints, or if important decisions cannot be represented in the generation model, a maintained specification alongside the code may be more practical. The team can keep the spec authoritative for intent while allowing code to change during discovery—provided each change triggers reconciliation rather than being silently treated as self-documenting.
Spec Kit’s documentation also describes different ways artifacts evolve. Flow-back allows edits to implementation, tasks, plans, or the spec and requires later reconciliation; it accommodates discovery but can leave silent drift. Flow-forward creates new feature directories as requirements change, preserving history but potentially fragmenting it. Treating a living spec as the contract and regenerating or revising plans and tasks keeps the contract central, but regenerated artifacts can lose decision rationale.
Choose among these approaches by considering how reliable regeneration is, how often requirements change, whether audit history matters, how many people collaborate, how easily drift can be detected, and whether the rationale behind decisions will survive in the durable record. None of the approaches removes the need to decide how disagreements are handled.
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Make the specification reviewable and testable
A practical contract needs enough structure for someone other than its author to tell what it means and how to challenge it. The SDD Labs specification contract, version 0.1.0, is a draft proposal rather than a universal standard. Its suggestions are useful as a starting point for a team’s own policy.
- State the intent: describe the problem, affected users, constraints, and non-goals so readers can distinguish required behavior from scope that was deliberately excluded.
- Write falsifiable acceptance criteria: each criterion should name an observable result that would show it was not met. “Handle errors well” is difficult to verify; a specified outcome for a particular error condition is easier to test and review.
- Give criteria stable identifiers: an ID lets implementation tasks, tests, code reviews, and incident records refer to one exact requirement rather than a vaguely described paragraph.
- Record uncertainty: mark open questions rather than presenting assumptions as settled decisions.
- Assign ownership: identify who reviews the contract and when it should next be checked. Ownership does not guarantee accuracy, but it makes maintenance a named responsibility.
Trace both directions and define how conflicts are resolved
Traceability should work from requirements to implementation and from implementation back to requirements. Link tasks and tests to the criteria they are intended to satisfy. Then check for criteria that have no implementation or test, as well as implemented behavior that has no stated requirement. The draft SDD Labs contract proposes this kind of addressable criteria and explicit drift detection; it is a practical synthesis, not a mature industry standard.
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Before an incident, decide which artifact governs which kind of disagreement. For example, the spec might express intended behavior while observed production behavior determines the immediate incident response. If responders choose a temporary behavior that departs from the spec, record that decision and assign reconciliation rather than silently treating the production result as the new contract. The exact authority rule depends on the team and system; leaving it implicit is what makes “source of truth” unreliable when a real conflict appears.
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Make reconciliation part of the normal change path. A pull request that changes behavior should update the spec or record an intentional divergence, and review or CI can check that the required link or decision exists. The purpose is not to make every code change wait on ceremony; it is to keep the contract and the implementation’s intent from separating unnoticed.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Reconcile incident fixes and changed requirements
- Stabilize the system first. During an incident, make the necessary operational decision; do not delay recovery to preserve documentary consistency.
- Record the behavior and decision. Note what production did, what the response changed, and whether that behavior is intended to remain.
- Compare against specific criteria. Use stable requirement IDs to identify which criteria still apply, which are contradicted, and which no longer cover the case.
- Choose the durable outcome. Update the spec to match the intended behavior, change the implementation to meet the existing contract, or document a deliberate exception with an owner and follow-up.
- Update verification. Add or revise tests and monitoring checks that would reveal the same disagreement next time. Confirm that the verification is independent enough to catch a shared mistaken assumption.
For a changed requirement, follow the same logic: decide whether it replaces an existing criterion or adds a new one, preserve the reason for the change, and update affected implementation and tests. If the team uses flow-forward feature directories, retain a clear route from the new artifact to the current contract; history is less useful when readers cannot find which version governs now.
What the evidence supports—and what it does not
Microsoft’s June 10, 2026 article, “Spec-Driven Development: A Spec-First Approach to AI-Native Engineering,” argues that shared structured specifications can reduce ambiguity across requirements, design, implementation, and validation. It also recommends right-sizing the process rather than applying a full lifecycle to every change. These are Microsoft’s reported practice and guidance, not independent experimental proof.
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The article reports that onboarding new asset types in one brownfield example changed from “2–3 weeks to a few days” after reusable parameterized specifications were introduced. That is a single vendor-authored case example, not a controlled comparison, an average, or a guaranteed outcome. The cited material does not establish a broadly generalizable productivity rate for SDD.
For protocol work, the IETF Internet Architecture Board’s 2022 RFC 9413, Maintaining Robust Protocols, makes the maintenance point directly: “For a protocol to have sustained viability, it is necessary for both specifications and implementations to be responsive to changes, in addition to handling new and old problems that might arise over time.” The RFC warns that when official specifications are neglected, deployed implementations and their quirks can become a substitute standard. That is a protocol-specific argument, but it illustrates why neither a written contract nor shipped code can be assumed to stay accurate without active evolution.
Right-size the process
Use full planning and bidirectional traceability when risk, complex requirements, or coordination make the added work worthwhile. For a small, obvious change, a lighter review may be more appropriate. Microsoft’s guidance explicitly says not every change needs the full lifecycle; the key is to preserve a clear account of intended behavior and an effective way to catch meaningful drift.
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