About the Manifesto
A doctrine for deciding what is worth building.
The Manifesto for human software development with artificial intelligence proposes thinking about and evaluating products based on people's progress, preserving their clarity, trust, and control.
We build tools to extend what people are capable of, not to display what software is capable of.
Why it exists
Building software has become faster. Artificial intelligence can turn instructions into screens, automations, and code with unprecedented ease. But that abundance does not guarantee better products: it can also turn a weak decision into a perfectly finished feature.
I wrote this manifesto in response to that change. Its central question is not only whether something can be built, but whether it deserves to exist, what progress it enables, and what burden it adds to the life of the person using it.
That is why its unit of measure is not the number of features delivered. It is the progress a person can achieve with clarity, trust, and control.
A way of understanding software
People do not come to a product to use features. They come because they want to understand, decide, create, learn, communicate, solve, or move forward. That progress is the real product.
From this perspective, experience is part of function. A solution remains incomplete if it achieves the technical outcome but forces the person to decipher the interface, remember unnecessary conventions, or act without understanding what will happen next.
The manifesto does not reject the complexity of problems. It holds that the complexity of building a solution must not automatically be transferred to the person using it. Technology—and artificial intelligence in particular—must absorb complexity, not multiply it. It may propose, explain, and automate, but it remains subordinate to the person's intent.
Origins and influences
This framework is an independent elaboration inspired by public ideas from Craft and by the conversations that gave rise to this document. It is not an official Craft manifesto, and it does not attribute the operational rules proposed here to Craft's founder.
From Craft, it draws on the union of form and function; the effect a tool has on the energy and capacity of the person using it; adaptable complexity, which appears when needed; and a human first approach, as opposed to systems that force people to adapt to their structure.
From Jobs to Be Done, it retains progress as the higher-level reference. From Job Stories, it adopts a concrete way to bring that progress into design through circumstance, motivation, and the desired outcome. Job Stories are a useful reference, not a mandatory structure: the framework can respect product definitions expressed in other ways without distorting them or reducing their scope.
A synthesis of its own
What I sought was not to bring these influences together, but to turn them into a verifiable decision system.
Its ten principles connect human progress with experience, attention, trust, continuity, and control. The product foundation establishes what must be built and why. The doctrine for artificial intelligence distinguishes what may be generated from what requires certainty. Acceptance tests require evidence that the person was able to move forward, not only correct software or a finished interface.
Thus, the manifesto brings a humanistic perspective together with a concrete practice: understand before building, justify every capability, and verify the progress it produces.
What the manifesto does not prescribe
The framework does not impose a visual style, a technology, a single PRD structure, a delivery strategy, or an engineering framework. It defines principles and boundaries that may be translated into different methods and tools without turning the system's internal structure into additional work for the person.
Technology can be extraordinarily sophisticated behind the interface. In front of it, there must remain a person focused on what they set out to achieve.
Documented sources and influences
- About Craft, Craft.
- Introducing Craft 3, Balint Orosz, November 28, 2024.
- Your content is yours and that is more empowering than ever, Balint Orosz, November 27, 2025.
- Designing Features Using Job Stories, Alan Klement, published by Intercom on December 23, 2013.
Authorship and versions
The manifesto and this site are the work of Damián Acuña. The published text corresponds to version 2.1 of the manifesto core, from September 2026.
A new version does not silently replace the previous one: what changed is recorded, and the pages that depend on it are reviewed.
Software Humano and Manifiesto
Manifiesto is the work of Damián Acuña. It is published and maintained by Software Humano, the agency that creates digital products under this doctrine and accepts being evaluated by it. Each site has its role: this one explains, provides the rationale, and governs; Software Humano is responsible for presenting its offering and its products on its own site. That is why there is no commercial offering here, and the core passages can be read in full only on this site.
Where each text comes from
The site distinguishes and labels each class of content. The canonical text is shown as it appears in the manifesto. The explanations, examples, and tests are written for the site based on an identified passage, which can always be opened. The translations retain the reference to the Spanish original, which is authoritative. The technical status of the adaptation to SpecKit is shown as verified data, with its version and date.
All content lives in versioned files: every change is recorded along with who approved it and which languages it affects.
An independent initiative
Software Humano is not affiliated with the companies, tools, or authors that influenced it. The adaptation to SpecKit is an independent reference implementation, without GitHub's endorsement.
Licenses
| Material | License | What you may do |
|---|---|---|
| Manifesto core text | CC BY 4.0 | Copy, translate, adapt, and share it, including for commercial purposes, crediting Damián Acuña as the author, linking to the license, and indicating whether you made changes |
| Site editorial content: explanations, examples, and page copy | CC BY 4.0 | The same, with the same attribution |
| Site code | MIT | Use, modify, and distribute it while retaining the copyright notice and license |
| Method for SpecKit (preset and tools) | MIT | The same |
| The names “Software Humano” and “Manifiesto,” and the logo | Reserved | They are not covered by those licenses. An adaptation must not be presented as official, certified, or endorsed by Software Humano |