Specification-Driven Development and Software Quality: A Null Result from 89,599 Pull Requests
Brenn Hill · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
First large-scale empirical test of spec-driven development (SDD) quality claims. Within-author fixed effects and JIT defect prediction controls across 119 open-source repositories find no association between specification presence, specification quality, and defect outcomes. The null result persists across all robustness checks.