😱 Talking to the Spec — Literally

Something fundamental just shifted.

I’ve been refining the product management loop inside Vulcan Forge: the flow from high-level intent → structured requirements → YAML specs → plan layers → codegen. It’s getting tighter. More explicit. More formal. And it’s finally hitting the point where requirements can’t just be vibes, they need to be graded, referenced, and iterated with care.

I built a requirements grading prompt. Gave it a rubric. Told it: if anything’s unclear, don’t guess — ask me. And not all at once. One question at a time. Be like a great senior engineer doing a design review.

That alone was already a huge step forward in my ability to handle more complex features.

But the real multiplier is that I'm not typing. I've been using ChatGPTs transcription feature to talk to LLMs for a while now, but when paired with this new back-and-forth requirements gathering flow, it's a total game changer.

Suddenly, requirements gathering didn’t feel like documentation. It felt like dialogue. Fast, fluid, low-friction. I wasn’t grinding through long form sentences or carefully formatting my thoughts. I was just speaking — and the model kept up. Asked smart follow-ups. Held the thread. Moved on when things were clear.

And that’s when I realized:

This is better than most real-world collaboration.
Not because the AI is smarter — but because there’s no bureaucratic drag.

No emails. No Slack threads. No bullet points to help the reader keep up. No post-meeting notes to ensure my message didn't get forgotten. No needing to phrase everything “clearly for others.” Just a direct line from thought → speech → clarification → momentum. It felt like working with a tiny, brilliant team that just gets it. People I don’t need to manage, but who still push back when something’s unclear and then carry it forward.

The whole interaction model is shifting.

And this isn’t hypothetical. I’m already doing it in ChatGPT. Talking through my specs. Getting real-time feedback. Tightening ambiguity. Clarifying purpose. I can feel how easily this flows into Forge.

Voice + conversation + structural guidance = Spec work that doesn’t feel like work.

This is what product management should feel like.