Ask HN: What do you use for normative specs to drive AI agents?
3 points
13 hours ago
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| HN
my current convictions are:

1. "agentic" development is here to stay, whether we like it or not

2. markdown prompts are a terrible way of driving such development, no matter how much structure and hierarchy you're trying to impose (whether chaining or fan-out into personas, etc)

3. jigsaw-puzzle approach is less terrible - declare the "boundary" of any component or subsystem in a normative language of your choice and let the agent fill the insides

it's fine if you think those convictions are incorrect, but i'm more interested in feedback from folks that more-or-less agree, with regard to the last point: what do YOU use for normative language to describe component boundary, function and cross-component interactions?

i've had mild success with openapi, but maybe there are better alternatives?

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jerome_mc
2 hours ago
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I believe the ultimate goal for any software product is to lower the barrier to entry. It used to take months of study just to get started with coding, and at least half a year to a year to build a functional website. Now, you can practically "talk" things into existence—even if it takes a few rounds of prompting. Because of this, I don't think there will be a "standard" way to develop in the future. Code is ultimately a tool to solve human needs at the lowest possible cost, so naturally, the cost of writing that code should be as low as it can get.

IMO, there is no such normative specs. Just tell your agent what you want and teach it until it gives exactly what you want.

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