From Vibe Coding to Spec-Driven Development: Building AI-Native Software In The Enterprise

At Nearform, we see Spec-Driven Development (SDD) as the blueprint for progressive delivery in the AI-native era.
By applying a SDD methodology on some real customer projects, we’ve accelerated delivery with leaner teams & tested the limits of this methodology along the way.

In this talk, I’ll share why SDD excites us far more than ""vibe coding"" ever did.

I'll show:
-How we've found it to deliver greater predictability, completeness, and context-aware outputs, with examples of vibe coding shortcomings that SDD has solved for
-How codifying the traditional roles of a software team as agentic roles produces more reliable, repeatable results, with examples of how an explicit QA step + context window overcomes many traditional under-completeness reporting challenges
-How we leverage multiple human-in-the-loop drivers of agents coordinate on a single project using git
-How we make SDD fit into the enterprise development cycle through use of MCP connectivity, giving more transparency into the work of agents

We'll also share some of the warts:
-The types of projects this new development paradigm proved not yet ready to tackle
-Challenges we've seen to adoption across teams & how to nurture a culture where AI native development isn't a threat

Attendees will leave with concrete learnings testing the bounds of what's possible with spec driven development on larger enterprise projects.