Thread

1. 8cvor6j844qw_d6 · 1789604845 · focus · HN ↗

   What are people using for this nowadays?

   There seems to be a spectrum from fluid, iterative workflows like OpenSpec to more up-front alignment and control like Matt Pocock skills.

   Curious what people have settled on.

   1. kaurimu · 1789611404 · focus · HN ↗

      I settled on lat.md [1] at the beginning of this year and never looked back.

      Its design offers a compellingly simple surface for weaving natural-language intent into the codebase itself, without overcomplicating things:

      ---

      Key Ideas

      * Plain markdown: readable by humans, parseable by agents

      * Wiki links connect concepts into a navigable graph

      * // @lat: and # @lat: comments tie source code to specs

      * lat check ensures nothing drifts out of sync

      * lat search for semantic vector search across all sections

      ---

      For me it strikes the right balance between structure and flexibility. It gives agents enough context-efficient grounding to reduce functional and architectural drift [2], while remaining malleable enough to evolve with new requirements.

      Admittedly I haven't run any evals, and I'm sure there are even better systems out there... but if I still had the problem I was trying to solve when I found it, I wouldn't be talking about it right now.

      Of course it's likely that my problem has only migrated to a higher order of complexity, but surfacing it again through building increasingly complex things is an interesting enough challenge in itself.

      [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;vercel-labs&#x2F;lat.md" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;vercel-labs&#x2F;lat.md

      [2] 100% auto-eliminating drift is an unrealistic goal -- that&#x27;s where you come in.

      1. iafiaf · 1789652644 · focus · HN ↗

         Hi, your comment motivated me to try it out on my project. I&#x27;m looking for some advice.

         I had a 2000 line specification, but no code yet. Based on lat.md, I have split the specification into 25 different files in the lat.md folder (not sure if that&#x27;s too many).

         My next task is to create a staged implementation plan, but I&#x27;m not sure how lat.md can help me (or is it even designed to?). Should the implementation plan stages also be separate markdown files in the lat.md folder? Or a sub folder? (Does it matter).

         My understanding is that lat will help create a knowledge graph between the specification files the implementation files, and the code.

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