chapter four

4 Collaborating Across Product, Architecture, and Engineering

 

This chapter covers

  • Optimizing team productivity with AI agents through SDD
  • Collaboration patterns and their bottlenecks
  • Standing context and feature specific contribution per role
  • Growing a standing context from an empty state
  • Building the URL shortener as a team with SpecKit

Intent-Driven Development is a collaborative effort. Not just among humans, but also a collaboration with the agents that are now becoming part of our teams. Every agent session behaves like a new joiner who arrives, works on a task, and leaves. The next session is with another new joiner, with no memory of anything the previous one learned. Onboarding each of them through tribal knowledge and ad hoc conversations worked when we onboarded a few colleagues a year. It cannot work when we onboard several agents a day.

4.1 Moving beyond solo SDD: collaboration patterns

4.1.1 Three roles at the specification surface

4.1.2 Engineer as scribe

4.1.3 Passing the baton

4.1.4 Mob authoring

4.1.5 Asynchronous contribution through encoded expertise

4.2 Specifying as a team

4.2.1 Product specialist defines the what

4.2.2 Architect shapes the how

4.2.3 Engineer authors the tasks

4.2.4 Beyond the three roles

4.2.5 Standing context is grown, not installed

4.3 Hands-on: building the URL shortener as a team

4.3.1 Exercise Setup

4.3.2 First slice: each role contributes its part

4.3.3 Second feature: link expiration

4.3.4 Reviewing the constitution

4.4 Making the framework work for us

4.5 Summary