Spec first, code second: one workshop experiment shows agents build the wrong app

Al_Grigor · x · 2026-10-29

The author ran a comparison in his workshop: a one-shot prompt — "implement a tool for weekly project feedback" — made the agent ask zero questions and build a CLI for tracking project health. The same idea, scoped by having ChatGPT interview the author one question at a time, produced a team retrospective tool with anonymous feedback, clustered cards, voting, and action items.

His recommended spec covers: users, workflow, MVP, out-of-scope, and decisions the agent can't make. The core lesson: technically fine code can still miss the product — any decision left unstated gets made by the agent.

Workshop recording linked in the post.

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