# Dispatches from O'Reilly: The right amount of spec for agentic development

DevFeed: [Dispatches from O'Reilly: The right amount of spec for agentic development](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/dispatches-from-o-reilly-the-right-amount-of-spec-for-agentic-development-2211.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://stackoverflow.blog/2026/08/21/dispatches-from-o-reilly-the-right-amount-of-spec-for-agentic-development/>)

Author: Markus Eisele

Published: 2026-08-21T14:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Stack Overflow Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/stack-overflow-blog.md>)

Topics: [AI Bots](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-bots.md>)

Tags: [agentic](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agentic.md>), [agents](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agents.md>), [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [buiilding-software](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/buiilding-software.md>), [coding](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/coding.md>), [cost](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cost.md>), [development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/development.md>), [oreilly](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/oreilly.md>), [review](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/review.md>), [se-stackoverflow](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/se-stackoverflow.md>), [se-tech](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/se-tech.md>), [software-engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software-engineering.md>), [vibe-coding](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/vibe-coding.md>)

## AI overview

The article argues that agentic development needs a middle ground between vague prompts and costly formal specifications. Executable checks, examples, and constraints reduce correction loops and make correctness less dependent on human review.

## Source excerpt

When code gets cheap, the hard part is deciding what "correct" means and building a reliable way to check it.