Computational Intelligence Society and co-sponsored by IEEE Boston AI Group

As AI-assisted software engineering evolves beyond interactive chat and ad-hoc prompting into context engineering, Spec-Driven Development (SDD) has emerged as a crucial discipline for generating predictable, production-ready code. However, moving from theory to implementation presents real challenges: Which spec frameworks actually hold up in practice? And how to adapt to a particular organization’s coding best practices without overloading the context?

In this talk, we examine three primary Opensource SDD frameworks: BMAD, OpenSpec, and SpecKit. The speaker will walk through workflows to evaluate how each framework structures specs, handles edge cases, and manages execution. Additionally, we’ll analyze the trade-offs of using enriched context vs. lean context, highlighting where additional context sharply reduces hallucination and where it simply adds noise or degrades performance.

The goal is to help engineering teams make an informed choice by covering these areas:

• Tool Trade-offs: Key usability differences between the three frameworks
• Context Engineering: Practical rules for structuring context to maximize generation quality without over-saturating the model.
• Gotchas: Where SDD tooling falls short and how to design resilient specs for daily engineering workflows.

Subhash Kovela of Capital One

Biography:

Subhash Kovela is a Senior Lead Software Engineer at Capital One with over 18 years of experience in the tech industry, spanning startups to Big Tech companies including Amazon and Wayfair. Over the course of his career, he has worked in both individual contributor and engineering management roles. He is a passionate advocate for open source, contributing actively to the community and mentoring fellow engineers. A continuous learner, Subhash is an enthusiastic promoter of building with AI and is furthering his academic expertise in the field through a Master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University. He regularly participates in local tech events, industry discussion panels, and peer reviews.

Registration:  https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/575329

Location:  Zoom.  Registration is required.