field note · 2026-08-21

Stop writing requirements. Start writing specifications.

As AI coding agents improve, the bottleneck may shift from writing code to expressing business intent clearly enough for humans and machines to act on it.


Software teams have spent years learning to work with intentionally lightweight requirements.

AI changes that equation.

When an AI coding agent becomes part of the delivery system, ambiguity becomes expensive in a different way. The agent can generate code remarkably quickly, but it can also generate the wrong solution remarkably quickly.

The bottleneck may be moving from writing code to expressing intent.

Working theory

As implementation becomes cheaper, clarity becomes more valuable.

What is the minimum amount of structured clarity required to let humans and AI collaborate effectively?


STATUS: EXPLORING

This is a working idea, not a finished framework.