Three Lattes, One Order

A design lead proposes keeping one requirements document per feature, a table with a prototype under each row, so that people and AI agents build from the same version.

When designers, product managers and engineers can each write a polished specification in minutes with AI, one feature ends up described in three or four documents that drift apart. An AI agent builds from whichever document it is given and cannot tell that it is out of date. Leonardo De La Rocha, who leads design for software used by clinicians, proposes replacing them all with one table of capabilities.

• Each row of the table is one thing the product lets someone do, with a link to a click-through prototype of that one flow.
• A designer records a video walkthrough for the top of the table, and a section on data needs lets data and AI teams prepare. The table replaces the design brief.
• De La Rocha dropped the design brief once before, when he helped rebuild how Spotify's advertising unit went from idea to build.
• He warns that the format has to be held firmly, because any room left for the old documents lets them come back.

A team in which several roles write specifications can agree on one document per feature for people and agents to build from. Whether the table format suits other products is an inference and is not the author's claim.

Derived by Working Surface from the article. Source line: In a builder model, it matters less who writes the doc and more that there's only one.

27 September 2026: when AI writes part of the work, people need to see what was made, by whom and from what.