The Speclr Blog
For professionals who build with intent and precision.
From vague idea to clear specs - Product Definition, Requirements Engineering, Software Architecture, Backlog Planning, AI Development, and the structured practices that separate professional teams from everyone else.
Gherkin basics: Given, When, Then is not a template - it's a thinking structure
Most developers encounter Gherkin in a test file and assume it's a test format. It isn't. Given, When, Then is a logic constraint - one that forces a separation of state, action, and observable result before anyone opens an IDE. The test is a side effect. The thinking is the point.
User stories are monologues. That’s why your refinement keeps breaking.
Your refinement meetings keep breaking the same stories. The team writes better ones next time. It breaks again. The problem isn't story quality - it's that the format itself turns requirements into a monologue.
BDD is a thinking tool. The tests are optional.
Most BDD rollouts fail the same way: someone installs Cucumber before anyone understands why. The core of BDD isn't a framework, it's a sentence. Write the scenario before you write the code. Everything else is optional scaffolding.