1. The Premise: Code Is No Longer the Source of Truth

For over 70 years, software development has centered around human-written code as the primary expression of intent. Developers authored instructions in procedural or object-oriented languages, often manually stitching together systems from scratch or leveraging vast libraries of prebuilt but black-box components. The dominant challenges have remained unchanged: managing complexity, ensuring correctness, eliminating duplication, and defending against the vast attack surface that grows with every line.

In this manifesto, we present a radical departure: a system where code is no longer hand-written, but generated. A system where developers author specifications—modular, composable, reusable, and expressive—and where AI transforms those specs into fully functional, complete, and tested systems.

This is post-code development. And it changes everything.

2. The Core: Specification Is the New Code

At the heart of this model is the specification—not in the sense of dry requirements documents, but in the form of precise, modular, semi-formal blocks that describe:

• Functional requirements
• API behavior
• Validation rules
• Domain models
• Interactions
• Authentication logic
• Deployment expectations

Some specs are bespoke, written to capture the exact needs of an end-user. Others are boilerplate, reused across projects but now encoded with clear boundaries and semantic structure.

These components are assembled, much like a composer arranges music, into a unified blueprint. This composite spec is the true source of the system. The code is merely the byproduct.

3. The Engine: AI as Compiler

Large Language Models (LLMs) have reached a level where, given structured prompts and high-fidelity intent, they can:

• Generate production-grade code
• Resolve contradictions and overlaps
• Enforce architectural patterns
• Select optimal implementations
• Document their output
• Build end-to-end systems

By treating the composed specification as input, the AI becomes a new kind of compiler—one that works not from tokens or ASTs, but from human-readable semantic intent. No longer does the developer write glue code. No longer are there code hotspots left vulnerable for hackers. The AI creates what is needed, and only what is needed.

4. The Methodology: Author, Assemble, Synthesize, Ship

Step 1: Author Modular Specifications

Each part of the system is described using modular specs: Boilerplate specs for logging, user management, payment handling, etc., and Bespoke specs for the organization’s unique needs. These specs are written in human-readable form, structured with consistent headings, references, and schemas that AI can understand contextually.

Step 2: Assemble a SpecBook

The modular specs are gathered into a single canonical document—a SpecBook—that defines every operational component, resolves overlaps, identifies interfaces between modules, and ensures all user and system requirements are explicitly defined. Each modular specification is known as a chapter of the SpecBook. These chapters may be reused, forked, or adapted to other projects.

Step 3: Synthesize via AI

The assembled SpecBook is fed into a capable LLM. It synthesizes exact code from the combined document, ensures logical consistency, fills in common gaps, and produces documentation, test scaffolding, and runtime logic as needed.

Step 4: Ship the System

With code generated, the system is tested using AI-written tests (or optionally hand-crafted ones), developers validate behavior against the original spec, and deployment is done using standard DevOps or automated tooling. And importantly—the spec is saved. Not the code. The code can always be regenerated.

5. The Low-Hanging Fruit: Where to Begin

For those ready to begin building in the post-code model, the first systems to target are those that are frequently implemented, reliant on established architectural patterns, and burdened by unnecessary SaaS licensing or code repetition. These include:

• ✅ Authentication Systems
• ✅ Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• ✅ Accounting and Invoicing
• ✅ Web Services and APIs
• ✅ User Interfaces (UI)
• ✅ Scheduling and Notifications

This is the starter pack of post-code transformation. Every company, team, and developer has touched these systems before. Now, they can spec them—once—and reuse forever.

✅ Email (Spam-Free, Corporate-Integrated)

In the post-code world, email isn't outsourced or rented—it’s composable, auditable, and spec-driven from day one.

6. Anatomy of a Reusable Spec

A reusable specification is not prose—it’s a structured, readable, and richly tagged declaration of behavior. While different organizations may adopt different formats, a strong reusable spec includes:

This is readable by developers—and understandable by AI. Modular, declarative, testable.

7. Case Study: Passwordless Auth in One Day

In early 2025, we spec’d a passwordless authentication system using the post-code method. The spec took two weeks to draft and iterate. Once finalized, the entire system was synthesized by an LLM in under 24 hours. This system was deployed, tested, and integrated into real-world infrastructure. The spec is now a reusable artifact. It can be regenerated, modified, and upgraded. Without debt.

8. The Post-Code Toolkit

Post-code development doesn't require heavy IDEs or frameworks. Instead, it favors tools that empower authorship, verification, and synthesis.

🛠 Recommended: Spec Editor, Spec Linter, Specbook Compiler, AI Synthesizer Interface, Version Control (for specs), Spec Docs Generator.

9. The Implications

• Security: By generating code per-instance, and avoiding hand-crafted attack surfaces, common exploits are eliminated. There is no stale code to probe, no unused interfaces to exploit. Code is ephemeral, disposable, and fresh.
• Velocity: What would take a team months can now be created in days. In a real-world case, a novel passwordless authentication server was spec’d in two weeks and implemented by AI in a single day.
• Independence: No more renting software from monopolistic platforms. No more being locked out of your own business logic. Developers can enter small businesses, replace overpriced SaaS tools, and deliver perfectly tailored systems, without ongoing license fees. This changes who gets to write software. It breaks the cycle of bloated dev teams maintaining fragile codebases. It makes custom software viable again.

10. The Role of the Developer: Composer, Not Coder

Developers in this model are system architects, domain analysts, and spec composers. They write the specs that describe what the system does, the interfaces the user will see, and the business logic in human-readable form. And then they watch the system take shape from those words.

There is no IDE. There is no manual loop. There is just the question: "Does this spec fully describe what we want?"

11. The End of Lock-In

The business model of big tech relies on renting your future. You pay monthly for code you don’t own, running on clouds you can’t control, written in languages you didn’t choose. Worse, the same tools sold to you are sold to your competitors. This manifesto proposes a different path: spec-first, own-everything development. If you can describe what you need, you can generate it. If you can save a spec, you can regenerate the system again. This is not vendor-neutral, it is vendor-irrelevant.

12. Naming the Movement

We now name this movement: SAAYN, Specifications Are All You Need. A nod to the seminal paper “Attention Is All You Need," the foundation of modern transformers, and a cheeky signal that in the future of code, this is the only sane path forward. It doesn’t need to be an acronym, it needs to be a direction. One where software is built declaratively, precisely, securely, and regeneratively.

13. The Second Best Decision

Some years ago, I began telling people that the second-best decision of my professional life was adopting Linux. They always asked, “So what was the best?” The answer was simple: “I deleted Microsoft.”

This manifesto is for those ready to delete more than Microsoft. It’s for those ready to delete outdated thinking about what developers are, what tools they must use, and how software must be written. It’s for those who believe we can build better, by building differently. It begins now. It begins with the spec.

14. Empowerment for the AI-Displaced

In an era where AI is reshaping the job market—automating routine coding tasks and leading to widespread layoffs—SAAYN offers a lifeline and a launchpad for reinvention. Imagine you're that developer, freshly laid off, staring at an uncertain future because "AI took over." But here's the twist: AI didn't eliminate your value; it amplified it. With SAAYN, you don't need to compete in the grind of traditional dev roles. Instead, pivot to becoming a spec-savvy consultant, crafting bespoke software that liberates small businesses from the shackles of bloated SaaS and skyrocketing cloud bills.

Why not hit the pavement (or Zoom) and meet with local shops, cafes, clinics, or startups? Listen to their pain points—the clunky CRM that's costing them $500/month, the outdated website that's driving customers away, the patchwork of leased tools draining their IT budget. Then, armed with SAAYN's methodology, author modular specs tailored to their exact needs. Assemble a SpecBook that captures their domain logic, user flows, and integrations. Feed it to an AI synthesizer, and in days—not months—deliver a fully functional, ownership-granting system.

The results? Wipe out those recurring cloud expenses by generating self-hosted solutions that run efficiently on minimal hardware. Gift them a "killer" website: responsive, secure, and spec-driven, with built-in SEO, e-commerce, or booking features that outperform generic templates. Empower their internal IT teams (or even non-tech staff) to regenerate and tweak the software as needs evolve—no more vendor lock-in, no more surprise fees, just software that "just works" because it's born from precise intent.

This isn't gig work; it's a movement toward software sovereignty. As a SAAYN practitioner, you're not just building apps—you're democratizing custom development. Charge a one-time fee for the spec and synthesis, offer ongoing spec maintenance as a service, and watch your clients thrive while you build a sustainable livelihood. AI may have disrupted the old guard, but with SAAYN, it hands you the tools to disrupt back. The future belongs to the composers who spec the world anew.

15. The Security Revolution

Oh, the irony—the very hackers who've feasted on the predictable feast of monolithic codebases, shared libraries, and unpatched hotspots are about to face their reckoning. For decades, cybercriminals have thrived on the sameness of software: the same WordPress plugins riddled with SQL injections, the same outdated dependencies in enterprise CRMs, the same API endpoints left exposed across millions of sites. They probe, exploit, and pivot with ease because the world's code is a vast, interconnected monoculture—familiar, fragile, and forever vulnerable.

But enter SAAYN, and the game flips. Now, every system is bespoke—generated fresh from specs, tailored to precise needs, and devoid of unnecessary bloat. No more "one vuln fits all" exploits. Hackers staring down a SAAYN-synthesized app won't recognize the terrain: custom authentication flows without the usual backdoors, APIs that expose only what's spec'd (and nothing more), databases structured in ways they've never scanned before. It's like trying to crack a safe that's rebuilt differently every time you approach it—ephemeral code means yesterday's zero-day is tomorrow's irrelevant artifact.

Think of the "poor" script kiddies and state-sponsored actors alike: They'll need to reverse-engineer on the fly, burning resources on one-off analyses that don't scale. No more mass-exploitation campaigns targeting ubiquitous frameworks; instead, they're forced into artisanal attacks, custom-crafted for each target. And here's the kicker—with specs as the source of truth, regeneration is trivial. Spot an anomaly? Tweak the spec, resynthesize, and deploy a fortified version in hours. Stale vulnerabilities? Nonexistent. Shared attack surfaces? Shattered.

This isn't just defense—it's deterrence. Small businesses, once low-hanging fruit for ransomware, now wield software as unique as their operations. Developers become guardians, composing specs that inherently prioritize security: enforced encryption, zero-trust integrations, and audit trails baked in from the blueprint. The bad guys? Left scrambling in a world where predictability is extinct. SAAYN doesn't just secure software; it starves the shadows that prey on it. The revolution is here—spec up, or get hacked out.