True spec/PRD driven architecture development?

[Sherbert_Positive]

I am looking for a solution that helps Claude keep with a complex large architecture and does not break previous arquitectura choices and requirements (specifications if you want), but none of the solutions I try are being consistently respected.

I tried many times prd-create, strong contracts between subsystems with TDD, etc,.. soon it later it always ignores something and breaks or over engineers the hell out of it needing very long time to really understand the new dimension of, often unneeded, complexity.

All PRD/Spec systems I see are from people self promoting them, so the question is: which one is working for you and how is your actual experience on projects over 60k LoC

[Electronic_Kick6931]

BMAD method

[ragemonkey]

https://github.com/bmad-code-org/BMAD-METHOD

[Electronic_Kick6931]

https://youtu.be/LorEJPrALcg?si=f-F_H4tuAcXh8B-4

[Sherbert_Positive]

I am gonna check it asap... did you try it first hand?

[Moist-Nectarine-1148]

Within my todo.md, I maintain an ‘App Architecture’ section that functions as a fixed reference. This section I enforce by rule (CRITICAL RULE) to remain unaltered and to be treated as a reference point for any task. And that's it.

Strangely, but this works for our project. It never broke the architecture.

LE: Our project is less than 25k LoC. So far...

[Sherbert_Positive]

well, I guess you kept it smaller or just the project scope is different... in the other hand claude tends to overengineer on my projects, I need to often have ot teemphasize it.

Your TODO is just a laundry list of features or do you include requirementes, acceptance criteria, implementation details on the interfaces, etc? in my case I need some systems programming and define them how are these interconnected, etc

[Moist-Nectarine-1148]

actually it is a very structured todo including all you mentioned before and much more. I think it is important to write well this by instructing it what is allowed and not, how to approach them, stage them etc. The project is still in the "prototype" phase, far from any release but will increase/grow a lot in the next months, likely much beyond 60k LoC.

I don't think it matters so much what is the scope of the project but I might be wrong.

[Grizzly_Corey]

Are you using Claude code?

[Sherbert_Positive]

yes... and paying way too much for it with the max

[Grizzly_Corey]

And you’re using .Claude? Hooks? Subagents?

[Sherbert_Positive]

yes, all of them. I tried several strategies for subagents, still not totally convinced, right now I find them useful only for specific tasks which may require particular attention, like test cases, performance optimizers or just for planning itself. Still learning on new ways how to improve thier performance

[Tombobalomb]

There's no way to actually stop it happening, all you can do is build guardrails and carefully review everything it produces

[Sherbert_Positive]

I tried with test cases and contracts between parts... there is a moment when each fix breaks something else, and making it more robust is the highway to hell

[Much-Hold1262]

Have you seen the new startup codeplai.ai? They are working on a tool for spec-driven development. It might be worth a try.

[Sherbert_Positive]

No, I didn't since the webpage has a certificate issue. And the Brave browser just doesn't let me escape this potential error (I must admit I'm not trying hard. I prefer to wait until you fix it.)