---
title: "Spec-Driven Development: The Waterfall Strikes Back"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/spec-driven-development-the-waterfall-strikes-back-xzhbdo7yv
source_url: https://marmelab.com/blog/2025/11/12/spec-driven-development-waterfall-strikes-back.html
type: article
source: "marmelab"
published: 2025-11-12T16:18:59.379Z
updated: 2025-11-12T16:19:25.469Z
tags: ["ai", "architecture", "agile"]
reading_time: 8
upvotes: 91
comments: 10
language: en
---

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# Spec-Driven Development: The Waterfall Strikes Back

**[marmelab](https://daily.dev/sources/Marmelab)** · 8 min read · 91 upvotes · 10 comments

## Summary

Spec-Driven Development frameworks like Kiro and Spec-kit generate extensive Markdown documentation before coding, echoing Waterfall methodology. While promising structure for AI coding agents, this approach creates context blindness, excessive documentation review, and diminishing returns on large codebases. The author argues for Natural Language Development instead: an iterative, Agile-inspired approach where developers give coding agents simple, incremental instructions without formal specifications, enabling faster convergence toward working products.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://marmelab.com/blog/2025/11/12/spec-driven-development-waterfall-strikes-back.html>

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@fabianletsch** · 9 upvotes

> Spec driven development often fails because you can't anticipate all requirements up front, key solutions and necessary changes often only become clear during implementation.

**@mythobyte** · 6 upvotes

> Upvoting for the Star Wars reference.
>
> Loved this: "Spec-Driven Development seems born from the minds of CS graduates who know their project management textbooks by heart and dream of removing developers from the loop. I think it’s a missed opportunity to use coding agents to empower a new breed of developers, those who use natural language and build software iteratively.
>
> Let me end with an analogy: coding agents are like the invention of the combustion engine. Spec-Driven Development keeps them confined to locomotives, when we should be building cars, planes, and everything in between....

**@danielalexandrov** · 5 upvotes

> Agile doesn't mean coding without specifications. Just iterating over small enough chunks.
>
> All agile frameworks rely on:
>
> * User stories
> * Acceptance criteria
> * Definition of Done
> * Backlog refinement
> * Iteration planning
>
> I am using Spec-kit fits really well in this iterative process.
> As to the "Markdown madness" the author mentions, I love markdown docs. "The Code Is The Documentation" approach only for smaller projects, and projects you won't get back after 2 years.

**@hectorfabio** · 4 upvotes

> "I’ve successfully used coding agents to build fairly complex software without ever looking at the code"
>
> That sentence tells me everything I need to know about the author, and it's not a good thing. You really should look up the difference between vibe coding and vibe engineering.

**@alexeyzerkalenkov** · 1 upvotes

> “How do we remove developers from software development?”  :-D love it!
> I agree with this guy, I've started to use the same approach intuitively, because I want to control my code.

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---

Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#agile](https://daily.dev/tags/agile)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/spec-driven-development-the-waterfall-strikes-back-xzhbdo7yv)