spec first

Before code, a short spec: the real goal in one line, what's in and out of scope, the assumptions I'm making, the approach, and the acceptance criteria. Terse prompts under-specify intent; the spec forces the real outcome to be named before anything gets built.

My prompts are often terse — “fix”, “move it”, “make it work.” A spec forces the real goal, scope, and definition of done into writing before any code exists, so the agent builds the right thing once instead of guessing and reworking.

Every task gets one, scaled to size — a one-line fix gets a two-line spec, a feature gets a full one. The acceptance criteria pair with the verification plan: the spec defines done, the verification proves it. When intent is genuinely vague, the spec surfaces the one clarifying question worth asking instead of guessing.

The whole method is downloadable and adaptable — method/steps/spec-first.md inside the zip. The template is five headings; the discipline is writing it before the first edit, every time.