Purpose

This Standard defines Shared Specifications as the preferred mechanism for communicating engineering intent across organizational and technical boundaries.

Engineering teams should exchange knowledge through governed Specifications instead of tightly coupled implementation artifacts whenever practical.

Standard

Engineering teams shall treat Specifications as the canonical mechanism for sharing engineering knowledge.

Shared Specifications shall become the authoritative reference for multiple implementations.

Implementations may differ. Specifications should remain consistent.

Principles

Shared Specifications shall:

establish a single source of engineering intent
reduce implementation coupling
improve organizational consistency
improve AI collaboration
improve traceability
enable independent implementations
preserve engineering knowledge

Shared Specification Characteristics

Shared Specifications should be:

implementation independent
technology agnostic
versioned
traceable
reusable
governed

Specifications should describe expected behavior rather than implementation details.

Engineering Workflow

The preferred collaboration sequence is:

Engineering Intent
        ↓
Shared Specification
        ↓
Architecture Review
        ↓
Independent Implementations
        ↓
Validation

Multiple implementations may conform to the same Specification.

Traceability

Shared Specifications should remain traceable to:

Discoveries
Standards
ADRs
Case Studies
Implementations

Implementations should reference the Specification version they implement.

Exceptions

Shared code may be appropriate when:

performance requirements justify reuse
infrastructure components require common implementations
governance explicitly approves shared implementation

Shared code should not replace shared engineering intent.

Relationship to Discoveries

This Standard operationalizes DISC-0006 — Shared Specifications Over Shared Code.

The Discovery explains why this approach emerged. This Standard defines how engineering teams apply it.

Relationship to the Operating Model

The Operating Model applies this Standard through:

Shared Specifications
Work Orders
Architecture Reviews
Implementation Reports
Independent Engineering Teams

Compliance

Engineering work conforms to this Standard when:

Specifications are shared across implementations.
Specifications remain the authoritative reference.
Implementations preserve traceability.
Shared code is used intentionally rather than by default.

Future Evolution

Future Standards may define:

Specification Publication
Specification Version Compatibility
Specification Dependency Management
Cross-Repository Specification Governance
Specification Distribution Models