SDD — Spec-Driven Development in Agile Teams

The diplomas for the topic "SDD – Spec-Driven Development" certify that the holder maintains an up-to-date, verifiable level of competence in specification-driven development methodology, ensuring that AI agents produce software that is predictable, traceable and aligned with product needs.

This diploma does not assess "theoretical knowledge" about specification tools, but rather the professional ability to design specs that work as operational contracts, calibrate the intensity of the process to the size of each problem and drive software construction through specification rather than conversational improvisation.

Certified competencies

Holding these diplomas up to date certifies that the holder is able to:

1) Diagnosing vibe coding and its limits

Identify the three structural problems of vibe coding —implicit requirements, context degradation and architectural drift— and determine when the complexity, risk or ambiguity of a change justifies applying SDD.

2) Applying the four-phase flow

Execute the full SDD cycle (requirements, design, tasks, implementation), producing the artifacts of each phase with the precision needed for AI agents to generate correct code on the first attempt.

3) Writing verifiable requirements

Write user stories with acceptance criteria that leave no room for the agent's interpretation, applying EARS notation and rigorously distinguishing between behavioral requirements and technical decisions.

4) Pragmatic technical design

Produce design documents that address the needs of the specific codebase —not the abstract one—, drawing on the Impact Report and specifying the architectural decisions that matter without falling into over-specification.

5) Breaking work down into atomic tasks

Transform a design into a sequence of tasks with structured prompts (role, task, constraints, success criteria), organized in waves that respect dependencies and exploit the agents' parallel execution.

6) Exercising human judgment at the approval gates

Concentrate review at the points where information is most valuable and the cost of correction is lowest, assessing requirements, design and tasks rigorously before delegating implementation to the agent.

7) Configuring the boundaries system

Define effective delegation frameworks through the three levels (Always, Ask First, Never), balancing agent autonomy with team control and evolving the rules as trust grows.

8) Writing intelligent specs

Apply Osmani's principles and the curse of instructions to produce specs that are clear, modular, proportionate and maintainable, avoiding the overload that degrades agent compliance.

9) Managing SDD in legacy codebases

Adopt SDD gradually in brownfield environments, using the project constitution, the delta format and the Impact Report as tools for integrating changes that are coherent with the existing system.

10) Integrating SDD with Scrum in AI-enabled teams

Connect the SDD flow with the roles (Product Architect, Product Builder, Agile Enabler), the Sprint ceremonies and the Scrum artifacts, maintaining the iterative rhythm and detecting anti-patterns such as over-specification, zombie documentation or specification theater.