I think both can be true: as coding languages go from lower to higher level, they go from being more implementation-like (e.g. assembly, C) to being more spec-like (e.g. Rust, Haskell). It then follows that writing a good spec could be considered coding if your compiler (or agent) can reliably turn that spec into your desired output.

So the main challenge I see with this approach is getting the spec right. Too little detail and the output is uncontrolled, too much detail and you're adding too many constraints (and you may be better off just writing code). From my experience, agents haven't been the best at writing good specs. But maybe this project can help with that?

Two things about that. On the one hand, I couldn't believe coding would be replaced when I started Agent Smith in January 2026. On the other hand, I wanted proof.

After 500k lines of code in Agent Smith, none of which I wrote by hand, I have to admit it: coding is more or less solved. That doesn't mean architects, developers, DevOps people and everyone else aren't needed anymore. I think they're needed more than ever.

Just implementing something isn't good enough. The spec has to point to sensible approaches and procedures, and the code has to be well structured (in my view, at least). Then the specs can simply run in parallel all night.

So my actual work on Agent Smith isn't coding at all. It's deciding what the right thing to build is, and how, in terms of design and architecture. I don't even review the code. But I do test it: 10k tests, a harness, a commit hook that blocks a spec while the suite is red, the whole story.

And unfortunately, that works pretty well. I also think last year's programming was more romantic :-D

Very confidently wrong.

Do you know why it's easier to specify theorems than it is their proofs? Or why ACSL != C?

You can go ahead and make a more specific argument, e.g. that mainstream UX-centric software development may not be amenable to current paradigms of formal verification, but to insinuate that a complete spec reduces to source code itself is naive.

EDIT: Possibly I have responded too acutely to the points you care less about. I agree that "in the future we won't need programmers" is questionable since good spec-writing and spec-vetting requires at least as much expertise, if not more, than ordinary coding work, and that is fair to call comprehensive spec work "code" in that it is technical and formal. But it is decisively not source code.

A couple of decades ago coding was "solved" by just writing UML diagrams. The nonsense never ends.

in my opinion, high-level planning is the important thing. not going too deep into planning, but more about having a plan as a red line that helps you not to drift away from the initial goal. in my point of view is that the risk when you start with a vibe-coded prototype, which is a great starting point and something I also like to use. But a few weeks later, you get to the point where the initial goal starts to drift, and you constantly have to steer things back to stay on track. That’s one of the critical pain points in my opinion.

they do work well in production. have a look at https://github.com/holgerleichsenring/agent-smith. While writing that the methodology had been created. Obviously, I didnt know upfront what I wanted to generate here. Also features are changed or removed on the way. that's not a problem, when the specifications are part of the git repository as it is done here. Actually it's the other way around: it is an advantage as the agent can have a look at everything that had been done previously and can understand what, why and how it had been implemented. give it a try :-)

the agent creates and maintains the specs, doing this manually doesn't make sense. The specs are written for the agents. after execution of create-spec, review-spec skill will check against the code and add evidence of the spec's aims. Only when the aims fits to the evidence, the specs is going to be validated successful. after that apply and deliver skills can be executed. finally there is commit hooks and tests that shall ensure quality and functionality. have a look at https://github.com/holgerleichsenring/agent-smith for the quality gates.

A plan lives in one session and is gone afterwards. A spec is a file in the repo. It gets reviewed against the actual code before anything is built, its definition of done is checked when the change is committed, and it stays there with the decisions behind it.

The next agent reads what was built before and why. And because it has a fixed format and workflow, everyone on a team works the same way, instead of each developer prompting their own plans.

Fair question. Spec Kit and BMAD are both broader than this. Spec Kit has dozens of agent integrations and an extension ecosystem, BMAD has personas for product, architecture, UX, dev and test. This is narrower and stricter about a few things:

Checking the spec before building. Spec Kit's converge compares the code with the spec after implementation. Here a script first resolves every file and line the spec cites against the current code, then a fresh agent answers BUILD, BUILD WITH CUTS or REFUSE.

A spec built on a wrong assumption gets stopped before any code is written. A commit gate that's part of the method. Every spec commit runs the project's verify stages (build, full test suite) and is blocked if anything is red. In Spec Kit you can add gates through extensions; here the definition of done is enforced by default. Decisions per spec. Every non-obvious choice is logged as chose / over / why, and later agents read it before changing something.

Memory as hints. Facts that don't fit in code or git live in the repo as hints, separate from decisions. In Agent Smith, the server product, a memory's standing comes from the runs that relied on it, so a wrong one can't turn into a rule.

Parallel by design. Each spec runs in its own worktree, and spec ids are minted from the date plus random hex instead of counting existing specs, so agents working in parallel never collide on a number.

YAML instead of Markdown. My first 100 specs in Markdown were 250k tokens; in YAML they're 15k.

formal methods like TLA+/BPMN describe system behavior, while the specs document individual changes. these complement each other rather than competing from my point of view.

but yes, it would be great to able to have such kind of formal description. code is not standardized enough for that (by now)