Left of the Loop: The Agora

Short summary

Teams should align on requirements through dedicated Spec Sessions before implementation starts, especially when using AI agents that ship code in hours. These pre-build meetings establish a shared mental model of what done means by surfacing contradictions and edge cases while changes remain cheap. This shifts the default from write-then-review to align-then-build, critical for catching misalignment before the agent generates code.

• •Spec Sessions are pre-implementation meetings where teams establish a shared mental model of requirements, not code or estimates.
• •The session surfaces disagreements and edge cases early, when misalignment is cheap to fix, rather than in review after code is generated.
• •This pattern becomes essential with AI agents that can ship in hours; the traditional weeks-long feedback loop no longer catches misreads in time.

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.