15 min · up to 70 XP

Writing specs AI can follow

Vague in, vague out. Precise in, shippable out.

Sam needs a password checker for her reading-list app, her first feature with real stakes. Old instinct says type the obvious thing: "Can you write me a function that checks if a password is good?"

Back in recruitment, she once briefed a headhunter with "find me someone good". Six weeks and forty mismatched CVs later, she learned exactly what that sentence costs. Same sentence, new industry. Predict what comes back.

Predict the response

Sam sends the vague version. The AI doesn't know her app is a hobby project, that she's a beginner, or what "good" means to her. Predict its move.

Can you write me a function that checks if a password is good?

What do you think the AI will do?

Sam laughs out loud: isPasswordGood("sunshine7"), her actual password, returns false. The AI didn't fail her; her brief did.

And she already knows the fix, because she has written it hundreds of times: a job spec. What the person will do. An example of a great fit. The dealbreakers. The constraints of the role. A good code request is the same document in miniature. It has four sections.

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