What is software development, exactly?
Not the code. The thing before the code — the intent, the structure, the capabilities, the guarantees. We've never had a formal answer. We've gotten by on documents nobody reads, diagrams that go stale, and the accumulated intuition of whoever happens to be in the room. AI doesn't fix that. In most shops right now, it makes it worse.
A theory of software development and AI
My claim is that intent, structure, capability, and verification are separable concerns that deserve first-class representations. That's not obvious, and it's not how the industry is building right now. But I think it's true, and I think it points toward a fundamentally different development experience than what anyone is currently shipping.
The work here — Skillex, the Context Engine, the prompt workspace, Spec IDE — are probes into that claim. Each one is asking something specific. Together they're sketching an answer.
This isn't a startup. There's no pitch deck, no funding round, no enterprise tier. It's eighteen months of work, a growing theory, and now a first collaborator along for the ride. If any of this resonates, you're welcome to follow along.
Jeremy Harper
@atheoryai