A spec can contain prose, tests, schemas, formal models, even executable code. The useful boundary is not the syntax but, rather, what survives: if you throw the implementation away, what has to remain so you can build the next one?
When Does a Specification Become a Program? - The Phoenix Architecture
A spec can contain prose, tests, schemas, formal models, even executable code. The useful boundary is not the syntax but, rather, what survives: if you throw the implementation away, what has to remain so you can build the next one?
When Does a Specification Become a Program? · The Phoenix Architecture
A spec can contain prose, tests, schemas, formal models, even executable code. The useful boundary is not the syntax but, rather, what survives: if you throw the implementation away, what has to remain so you can build the next one?
The Specification Is Not a Document - The Phoenix Architecture
Imagine joining a software project a few years from now. It is a large, mature system. It has thousands of business rules, years of operational experience,…
Compile to Architecture - The Phoenix Architecture
For a long time we’ve treated frameworks as the target of software development. But if systems are meant to be regenerated and replaced safely, the real compilation target has to be the architecture itself.
oracle/agent-spec
Open Agent Spec (Agent Spec) is a framework-agnostic declarative language for defining agentic systems. It defines building blocks for standalone agents and structured agentic workflows as well as common ways of composing them into multi-agent systems.
Production Is a Compiler Input - The Phoenix Architecture
Foundations of Algebraic Specification and Formal Software Development
This book provides foundations for software specification and formal software development from the perspective of work on algebraic specification, concentrating on developing basic concepts and studying their fundamental properties. These foundations are built on a solid mathematical basis, using elements of universal algebra, category theory and logic, and this mathematical toolbox provides a convenient language for precisely formulating the concepts involved in software specification and development. Once formally defined, these notions become subject to mathematical investigation, and this interplay between mathematics and software engineering yields results that are mathematically interesting, conceptually revealing, and practically useful. The theory presented by the authors has its origins in work on algebraic specifications that started in the early 1970s, and their treatment is comprehensive. This book contains five kinds of material: the requisite mathematicalfoundations; traditional algebraic specifications; elements of the theory of institutions; formal specification and development; and proof methods. While the book is self-contained, mathematical maturity and familiarity with the problems of software engineering is required; and in the examples that directly relate to programming, the authors assume acquaintance with the concepts of functional programming. The book will be of value to researchers and advanced graduate students in the areas of programming and theoretical computer science.
The semantics of clear, a specification language
This paper gives a semantics for the Clear language for specifying problems and programs, described by Burstall and Goguen in 1977. A blend of denotational semantics with categorical ideas is used.
The Implementation Remembers · The Phoenix Architecture
Every mature system is carrying around lessons that were never written down. They’re encoded as validations, retries, timeouts, workflows, and exceptions. The implementation remembers. The organization forgets
Specification by example
Specification by example (SBE) is a collaborative approach to defining requirements and business-oriented functional tests for software products based on capturing and illustrating requirements using realistic examples instead of abstract statements. It is applied in the context of agile software development methods, in particular behavior-driven development. This approach is particularly successful for managing requirements and functional tests on large-scale projects of significant domain and organisational complexity.[1]
A sufficiently detailed spec is code
Specifications do not address the limitations of agentic coding
LLMs as Collaborators in Language Specification and Design (PLSS 2026) - SPLASH/ISSTA 2026
Workshop on Programming Language Standardization and Specification This workshop aims to foster cross-pollination between researchers and industry professionals with experience in programming language specification and standardization. It provides a forum where participants can share insights, case studies, and best practices, and collaboratively explore solutions to current challenges. The goal of the workshop is to improve the collective understanding of how programming languages are specified, standardized, and evolved in practice. The workshop examines specifications as the foundation ...
Priivacy-ai/spec-kitty
Spec-Driven Development for serious software developers. Spec Coding with with Claude, Cursor, Gemini, Codex. Kanban dashboard, git worktrees, auto-merge and more.
GATlab: Modeling and Programming with Generalized Algebraic Theories
Categories and categorical structures are increasingly recognized as useful abstractions for modeling in science and engineering. To uniformly implement category-theoretic mathematical models in software, we introduce GATlab, a domain-specific language for algebraic specification embedded in a technical programming language. GATlab is based on generalized algebraic theories (GATs), a logical system extending algebraic theories with dependent types so as to encompass category theory. Using GATlab, the programmer can specify generalized algebraic theories and their models, including both free models, based on symbolic expressions, and computational models, defined by arbitrary code in the host language. Moreover, the programmer can define maps between theories and use them to declaratively migrate models of one theory to models of another. In short, GATlab aims to provide a unified environment for both computer algebra and software interface design with generalized algebraic theories. In this paper, we describe the design, implementation, and applications of GATlab.
quint-co/quint
An executable specification language with delightful tooling based on the temporal logic of actions (TLA)
Understanding Spec-Driven-Development: Kiro, spec-kit, and Tessl
Notes from my Thoughtworks colleagues on AI-assisted software delivery
