How we develop software

Building part of a product gives you something to test. You can try a workflow, compare alternatives and find out whether an idea is useful before committing to the rest of the build.

That requires some engineering discipline. Decide where the system boundaries belong, define the interfaces and keep the implementation small enough to check. Record the decisions so the next person, or agent, can understand why the code works that way.

The articles below explain these choices and their limitations. Teams will apply them differently depending on the product and the cost of getting something wrong.

Start with the product, not the agent

AI can implement a feature against an assumption nobody has checked. Before starting, establish who needs the feature, what it should do and how you will judge the result. As people use the software, their experience should influence what you build next.

Architecture and tests help you change the product without having to rebuild everything around it.

From principle to practice

Each principle has its own article with an example and suggestions for checking the work. The fictional worked example follows a maintenance-request product from its initial idea through design, implementation and review. It includes a decision to remove a feature.

The useful result may be a smaller product, or a decision to stop work on something that does not help its users.