Writing Your First Spec: A Practical Template

A practical, battle-tested template for writing clear, concise specs, plus a worked example for adding user search to a product.

Product manager drafting a specification document on a laptop

Writing Your First Spec: A Practical Template

The hardest part of Spec-Driven Development is writing the first spec. This guide gives you a battle-tested template and walks through filling it out with a real example.

The Spec Template

Every spec should contain these sections:

1. Problem Statement

One paragraph describing the problem you're solving. Not the solution — the problem. If you can't describe the problem without mentioning implementation details, you don't understand it well enough yet.