The Colign Loop: How structured specs survive contact with AI agents

Traditional specs have a lifecycle problem: they're written, used once, and then become dead documents. The code drifts from the spec. Nobody updates the spec. Eventually, the spec is useless.

The Colign Loop is a closed-loop workflow where specs stay alive from proposal to implementation to verification. It ensures that what the team agreed to build is what actually gets built.

The five stages

The Colign Loop moves every Change through five distinct stages:

Stage 1: Draft — Capture the problem

Someone identifies a problem or opportunity and writes a structured proposal:

• Problem — Why does this change need to exist?
• Scope — What specifically will change?
• Out of Scope — What explicitly won't change?
• Approach — How should it be built?

This structure is intentionally lightweight — four sections, not forty pages. The goal is clarity, not comprehensiveness.

Stage 2: Design — Collaborate on the solution

The team collaborates on the proposal using real-time co-editing. Multiple people can edit simultaneously — no "please review by Friday" emails.

During this stage:

• Acceptance criteria are added in Given/When/Then format
• Tasks are broken down from the scope
• Inline comments capture discussions and decisions
• Project Memory provides shared context (tech stack, conventions, constraints)

Stage 3: Review — Align before building

Designated reviewers approve the spec. Colign enforces workflow gates:

• All required approvers must sign off
• Unresolved comments block approval
• The spec snapshot becomes immutable after approval

This is the critical alignment checkpoint. Disagreements surface here — not during integration.

Stage 4: Ready — Dispatch to AI agents

The approved spec is dispatched to AI agents via MCP. The agent reads:

• The structured proposal (Problem, Scope, Out of Scope, Approach)
• Acceptance criteria (Given/When/Then scenarios)
• Task list with descriptions
• Project Memory for domain context

The agent implements each task, updating status in real-time: todo → in_progress → done.

Stage 5: Done — Verify against the spec

Implementation is checked against acceptance criteria:

• Each Given/When/Then scenario is verified
• All tasks are marked complete
• The spec remains the historical record of what was agreed and built

If the implementation drifts from the spec, the team decides: fix the code or amend the spec. Either way, the spec stays accurate.

Why immutability matters

When a Change is approved, it becomes a historical record: "At this point in time, the team agreed this was the right thing to build." An approved spec can't be silently edited — it must be formally amended, creating a new version while preserving the original.

This is invaluable for:

• Audit trails — Understanding why a decision was made, months later
• Accountability — Knowing what was specified vs. what was built
• Onboarding — New team members can read the spec history to understand context
• AI accuracy — The agent always reads the approved version, not a work-in-progress

The closed feedback loop

The most powerful part of the Colign Loop is the closed feedback cycle. After implementation:

1. The team verifies code against acceptance criteria
2. Drift is detected early — before it compounds
3. If drift is found: amend the spec (requirements changed) or fix the code (implementation is wrong)
4. The amended spec goes through review again — maintaining alignment

Specs that stay alive beat specs that die on approval. The Colign Loop ensures your specs are living documents that evolve with your codebase.

Why this matters for AI-powered teams

In traditional development, a dead spec is annoying but survivable — the developer knows what they built. In AI-powered development, a dead spec is dangerous:

• The AI agent reads the stale spec and builds the wrong thing
• Nobody remembers what the spec said vs. what was actually built
• The next AI agent that reads the spec gets outdated context

The Colign Loop solves this by keeping the spec synchronized with reality at every stage.

FAQ

Q: How long does a typical Change take to go through the full loop? A: Small changes can go from Draft to Done in a day. Complex features typically take 3–5 days, with most time spent in the Design and Review stages — exactly where human alignment matters most.

Q: What happens if requirements change mid-implementation? A: The spec is amended. The amendment goes through review. The AI agent reads the updated spec. The loop continues.

Q: Can stages be skipped for urgent changes? A: Colign enforces stage gates by default — each stage has entry conditions. This is intentional: skipping alignment is the #1 cause of rework. For hotfixes, teams can configure lighter gate requirements.