Spec first approach: the way to adapt vibe coding for enterprise work
Anil Yarimca
TL;DR
Spec first vibe coding is an approach where teams define the intended behavior, constraints, and acceptance criteria before generating any AI-driven code or automation. It turns AI output into a draft that must conform to a testable specification, instead of becoming the source of truth itself.
Vibe coding made building feel conversational. You describe what you want, an AI generates code or a flow, you run it, you react, you iterate. The speed is real, and so is the chaos when that speed hits enterprise reality: compliance, security reviews, change management, ownership, audit trails, and the uncomfortable question every operator asks after a failure: what exactly did this thing do.
Spec first vibe coding is the bridge. It keeps the momentum of vibe coding, but replaces “just keep prompting until it works” with a simple discipline: write the spec first, then let AI generate, then validate against the spec every time.
If you are building workflow automation, RPA, or agentic processes in a company environment, this is the practical way to make vibe coding safe, repeatable, and scalable.
Why vibe coding struggles in enterprise settings
In enterprise environments, speed without explicit behavior definitions creates risk, not leverage. Vibe coding is optimized for speed, not for certainty. That is perfect for prototypes, internal experiments, and proof of concept work. But enterprise work has different constraints.
Common enterprise questions that vibe coding alone does not answer well:
• What are the exact inputs and outputs
• What happens in edge cases and failures
• Who owns the workflow and who gets alerted
• What data is touched and where it is stored
• What permissions are required and why
• What changed between versions, and what tests prove it is safe
When a workflow fails in production, the organization does not want a clever explanation. It wants a clear, versioned statement of behavior and a trail of evidence. Vibe coding by itself tends to produce implicit behavior that only exists inside the generated code or inside a chat history.
Spec first vibe coding makes behavior explicit.
What spec first vibe coding actually means
Spec first vibe coding is a workflow where the specification defines the contract, and AI-generated output is validated against it before anything ships.
Then you use AI to generate the implementation, whether that is a workflow, an integration, an RPA script, or agent logic. You validate the generated output against the spec. You ship only when the spec and the behavior match.
A useful definition of “spec” in this new world is not a huge requirements document. Martin Fowler describes a spec in spec driven development as a structured, behavior oriented artifact written in natural language that expresses functionality and guides AI coding agents.
GitHub describes spec driven development similarly: you start with a spec that becomes the source of truth that tools and AI agents use to generate, test, and validate.
That is the core of spec first vibe coding:
• The spec is the source of truth
• The AI generated output is the draft implementation
• Validation is not optional
Why spec first vibe coding is valuable right now
AI made production faster. That increased the cost of producing the wrong thing faster.
Spec first vibe coding matters more now because:
• Generation is cheap, but correctness is not
• Iteration is fast, but governance is slow if you do it after the fact
• Teams are building more automations that touch systems of record
• Agentic workflows add decision making, which increases the need for traceability
Atlassian explicitly frames spec driven development as a way to replace ad hoc prompt driven vibe coding with structured planning and clearer specs to reduce contradictions and technical debt.
If you work in enterprise automation, you already feel this. Your bottleneck is not creating a workflow draft. It is making it reliable and safe to run every day.
The enterprise friendly truth: a spec does not need to be long
A common mistake is thinking “spec” means bureaucracy.
In practice, a high quality spec for spec first vibe coding can be one page. The key is not length. The key is structure and testability.
A strong spec answers:
- What are we automating and why
- What systems are involved
- What are the input requirements
- What are the output guarantees
- What rules must always be enforced
- What should happen on failure
- What must be logged and alerted
- What acceptance tests prove it works
That is enough to guide AI generation and enough to govern change.
How to implement spec first vibe coding in a real enterprise team
Here is a step by step process that works without slowing you down.
Step 1: Write the spec, then freeze the acceptance criteria
You can use AI to help draft the spec, but a human must own it. The acceptance criteria should be explicit and testable.
Step 2: Assign a risk level
This makes governance practical instead of emotional.
Example risk levels:
• Low risk: read only reporting, internal summaries, non critical notifications
• Medium risk: creates tickets, updates non critical tables, enriches data
• High risk: writes to billing, ERP, HR, identity, or customer communications
Step 3: Generate the first draft using vibe coding
Now vibe coding becomes powerful because the model is guided by a contract, not a vague goal.
Step 4: Validate with scenarios, not with vibes
Run your test scenarios. Confirm each acceptance criterion. Fix what fails. Repeat.
Step 5: Instrument observability before production
Logs, run history, and alerting are part of the spec. They are not a “later” task.
Step 6: Version the spec and version the workflow together
When the workflow changes, the spec changes. When the spec changes, tests change. This prevents drift.
This is the “enterprise upgrade” that makes vibe coding sustainable.
A short example: spec first vibe coding for support triage
Goal
Classify inbound support emails, route them to the right queue, and avoid risky automation when confidence is low.
Rules and constraints
• VIP customers always get high priority
• If classification confidence is low, route to manual review
• Never send an automatic response for account access issues
• If the ticket system is unavailable, retry twice, then escalate
Acceptance criteria
• Every VIP email is routed as high priority
• Low confidence messages always create a manual review ticket
• Every run writes a log record with run id and ticket id
• Failures always trigger an alert to the owner queue
Test scenarios
• Normal customer, clear issue, routes correctly
• VIP customer, clear issue, high priority route
• Ambiguous message, manual review
• Ticket system timeout, retry, then alert
• Missing customer identifier, manual review
Now, when you vibe code the workflow, the output has a target. You are not guessing what “good” is. You already wrote it.
Spec first vibe coding and agents: keeping autonomy inside boundaries
Agentic workflows introduce planning and decision making. That is great for productivity, but it increases the need for constraints and traceability.
Spec first vibe coding helps because:
• The agent’s allowed actions are clearly scoped
• The decision points are documented
• The outputs are validated against acceptance criteria
• Suggested improvements become reviewed changes, not automatic drift
This is the safest model for enterprise agent logic: agents can propose, but production changes must be versioned, tested, and approved.
Common mistakes that break spec first vibe coding
Mistake 1: Writing a story instead of a spec
A spec must be testable. If it cannot be tested, it is not a spec.
Mistake 2: Missing failure behavior
If you do not define what happens on timeout, invalid input, or partial failure, the workflow will fail in unpredictable ways.
Mistake 3: Treating logs as optional
Enterprise trust comes from evidence. Logging is part of the product.
Mistake 4: No ownership
Every automation needs an owner for alerts and exceptions.
Mistake 5: Not versioning the spec
If specs and flows drift apart, you lose the whole benefit.
FAQs
These are the most common questions teams ask when adopting spec first vibe coding in production environments.
What is spec first vibe coding?
Spec first vibe coding is an approach where you write a structured, behavior oriented spec first, then use vibe coding to generate an implementation that is validated against that spec.
Does spec first vibe coding slow teams down?
Usually the opposite. It reduces rework, debugging, and production surprises because the acceptance criteria are defined up front.
How detailed should the spec be?
Enough to define inputs, outputs, constraints, failure behavior, observability, and acceptance tests. Often this fits in one page.
Conclusion
Vibe coding unlocked speed. Enterprises still need trust.
Spec first vibe coding is the practical compromise: you keep fast generation, but you anchor it to a contract that makes behavior explicit, testable, and governable. If you adopt this as a standard, your team stops shipping “whatever worked today” and starts shipping automations that stay correct next month.