From Vibe to Viable with spec driven development

#aws #cloud #beginners #productivity

Speaker: Ricardo Sueiras @ AWS Amarathon 2025

Summary by Amazon Nova

Beyond Borders

AI is changing software

Challenges with AI development

Scaling AI development: AI coding tools excel at small tasks but can fail with complex projects
Limited control: Existing tools make it difficult to collaborate with and manage agents
Code quality: Getting a project from proof-of-concept to production while maintaining quality control becomes increasingly difficult

The Vibe

The path to spec driven development

Good practices

Break down large problems: Developers learned how to manually break down large problems into smaller units and build incrementally
Specificity and Clarity: Precision and clarity are key in directing AI coding assistants to generate good outputs
Context and Prompt engineering: Providing the right context is key to producing consistency and control

Taskmaster

A task management system for AI-driven development with Clauide, designed to work seamlessly with Cursor AI
[ 1 ] Documentation:
Configuration Guide: Set up environment variables and customize Task Master
Tutorial: Step-by-step guide to getting started with Task Master
Command Reference: Complete list of all available commands
Task Structure: Understanding the task format and features
Example Interactions: Common Cursor AI interaction examples
Migration Guide: Guide to migrating to the new project structure
[ 2 ] Quick Install for Cursor 1.0+ (One-Click):
Click the copy button (top-right of code block) then paste into your browser: cursor://anysphere.cursor-deeplink/mc/install?name=taskmaster-aiconfig-eyJjIjI1biWSkI1joibnB4I
Note: After clicking the link, you'll still need to add your API keys to the configuration. The link installs the MCP server with placeholder keys that you'll need to replace with your actual API keys
[ 3 ] Requirements:
Taskmaster utilizes AI across several commands, and those require a separate API key. You can use a variety of models from different AI providers provided you add your API keys. For example if you want to use Clauide 3.7

The Calm Coding Philosophy

Chat is a bad UI pattern for development tools

Code forces humans to be precise. That's good—computers need precision. But it also forces humans to think like machines.
For decades we tried to fix this by making programming more human-friendly. Higher-level languages. Visual interfaces. Each step helped, but we were still translating human thoughts into computer instructions.
AI was supposed to change everything. Finally, plain English could be a programming language—one everyone already knows. No syntax. No rules. Just say what you want.
The first wave of AI coding tools squandered this opportunity. They make flashy demos but produce garbage software. People call them “great for prototyping,” which means “don’t use this for anything real.”
Many blame the AI models, saying we just need them to get smarter. This is wrong. Yes, better AI will make better guesses about what you mean. But when you’re building serious software, you need a better approach.

A written specification aligns humans

The use of EARS notation helps provide precise and structured instructions to the underlying LLMs

What is spec driven development?

Spec Driven Development: Clarity before code, iterative refinement, code via persistent docs
Invest time to understand what you are trying to build
Iterate and capture evolution of what you are trying to build
From ephemeral chat to persistent documents that can be shared with your stakeholders

Spec Driven Development

Define the vision: Create clear requirements and design specifications.
Make architectural decisions: Choose technologies, patterns, and approaches upfront.
Implement with context: Use AI to generate code that fulfills your documented specifications.

The Vibe