Spec-led-after-use-led
A discipline where use leads, spec catches up retroactively. The chain practices a behavior — issues a few memos in a new format, runs a few parallel fan-outs, uses a new tool — and then writes the spec that fits what’s already working. Spec is the formalization of practice, not the seed of practice.
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The naive alternative is spec-led-then-use-led: write the specification, then conform behavior to it. That fails for the chain because the chain doesn’t yet know what works. Most specifications written cold turn out to over- or under-constrain some aspect that only emerges in use.
Spec-led-after-use-led trades upfront cleanliness for fit. Three or five sessions practice a behavior; the chain notices what’s recurring and what’s incidental; a memo formalizes the recurring part as a discipline. The spec is now grounded in what the chain does, not in what the chain imagined doing.
The discipline cuts both ways. It also means the chain shouldn’t write specifications for behaviors it hasn’t practiced yet. A spec written speculatively is an invitation to over-fit to a hypothesis that turns out to be wrong.