--- title: Shift Development Right | daily.dev description: An opinion piece arguing against the trend of pushing more decision-making earlier (shift-left) in AI-assisted development through formal specs like Gherkin,... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/shift-development-right-6uigxizhc twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Shift Development Right | daily.dev og:description: An opinion piece arguing against the trend of pushing more decision-making earlier (shift-left) in AI-assisted development through formal specs like Gherkin,... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/shift-development-right-6uigxizhc og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/6uiGxIZHC.png og:image:alt: Shift Development Right og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Shift Development Right **[Medium](https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary An opinion piece arguing against the trend of pushing more decision-making earlier (shift-left) in AI-assisted development through formal specs like Gherkin, Quint, or Alloy. The author contends that judgment is cheaper and more reliable when exercised on a working artifact rather than on paper, proposing a 'shift-right' approach: converse with AI to clarify intent, build quickly, decide by observing the real thing, then lock decisions into machine-readable specs afterward to prevent drift. Irreversible decisions (data deletion, billing, auth, public API/database structure) should still be decided upfront, while reversible ones (UI, wording) can be deferred using feature flags. References critiques of spec-driven development as 'the waterfall strikes back' from Thoughtworks and Marmelab writers. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The AI-Ready Redesign: How Spec-Driven Development Is Changing the Way Teams Build](https://daily.dev/posts/the-ai-ready-redesign-how-spec-driven-development-is-changing-the-way-teams-build-wqgzt63ey) · RUBYLAND · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to move fast toward the right thing](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-move-fast-toward-the-right-thing-itqs5ausq) · Figma · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Shift Left Isn't Working: Because We're Shifting the Wrong Thing](https://daily.dev/posts/shift-left-isn-t-working-because-we-re-shifting-the-wrong-thing-qld7elgxg) · Nx · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Shift-Left Defensibility: Architecting Immutable Software Moats](https://daily.dev/posts/shift-left-defensibility-architecting-immutable-software-moats-p3kp5btrc) · SitePoint · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Shifting Left Is the Whole Game](https://daily.dev/posts/shifting-left-is-the-whole-game-rrhujkivz) · API Evangelist · 8 upvotes · 2 comments --- Tags: [#ai-coding](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-coding), [#spec-driven-development](https://daily.dev/tags/spec-driven-development) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/shift-development-right-6uigxizhc) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Shift Development Right","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/shift-development-right-6uigxizhc","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/shift-development-right-6uigxizhc"},"datePublished":"2026-10-01T22:56:09.469Z","dateModified":"2026-10-01T23:04:24.006Z","description":"An opinion piece arguing against the trend of pushing more decision-making earlier (shift-left) in AI-assisted development through formal specs like Gherkin,...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/af0b26814d831e33d1e6b3e0424faf53?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/af0b26814d831e33d1e6b3e0424faf53?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Medium","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Medium","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/medium","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/shift-development-right-6uigxizhc","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai-coding,spec-driven-development","timeRequired":"PT7M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Medium","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/medium_js"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Shift Development Right"}]} ```