# Spec-Driven Development for Agentic Software Engineering: Harnessing Human-Agent Teamwork

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.00252 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.00252/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 8 of its 41 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 31 Aug 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Software engineering coding agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/software-engineering-coding-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Large Language Model-Based Agents for Software Engineering: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02977/) (2024)
- [Agents in Software Engineering: Survey, Landscape, and Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.09030/) (2024)
- [Guidelines for including grey literature and conducting multivocal literature reviews in software engineering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.02553/) (2017)
- [Towards AI-Native Software Engineering (SE 3.0): A Vision and a Challenge Roadmap](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.06107/) (2024)
- [Empowering Agile-Based Generative Software Development through Human-AI Teamwork](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15568/) (2024)
- [Toward Agentic Software Engineering Beyond Code: Framing Vision, Values, and Vocabulary](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.19692/) (2025)
- [Reliability in Software Engineering Qualitative Research through Inter-Coder Agreement: A guide using Krippendorff's α & Atlas.ti](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.00977/) (2020)
- [DevOps Team Structures: Characterization and Implications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.02361/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Context: Software engineering is moving from AI-assisted practices like vibe coding, in which assistants accelerate individual developers, towards Agentic Software Engineering (ASE), in which autonomous agents are delegated goal-level tasks. However, industry reports a productivity paradox: as individual productivity increases, team throughput, review capacity, and stability degrade because team-scale software engineering discipline is neglected. Objective: This paper aims to establish the conceptual and methodological foundations of Spec-Driven Development (SDD) as an enabling discipline for ASE at team scale and characterize the harness, i.e., the technical and methodological mechanisms through which teams govern agent behavior. Method: We conducted a conceptual analysis drawing predominantly on gray literature, including ASE vision and roadmap papers, practitioner reports, talks, and tooling, because peer-reviewed evidence and a shared academic-industrial vocabulary are not yet established. Results: Using a comparative characterization of the paradigm progression as conceptual framing, the article presents (i) a socio-technical model of SDD in which specifications act as the contract substrate between humans and agents; (ii) an operational characterization of the harness, distinguishing the technical harness around the agent from the methodological harness around the team, with worked examples; and (iii) a typology of five human--agent interaction patterns through which the human role is redefined. Conclusion: We conclude that SDD reconstitutes, in specification-centric form, the contracts that vibe coding dissolves: accountability, verifiability, and transferability. Given the immaturity of the evidence base, this work is presented as a first step toward academic-industrial consensus rather than a validated theory, and outlines a research agenda for future empirical validation.