At Tembo, we've watched teams go from shipping a few pull requests a week to shipping dozens a day. AI pair programming moved from experimental to essential faster than anyone predicted. But here's what we've noticed: most development practices are still stuck in 2023, creating friction where there should be flow.
The AI-First Software Development (AIFSD) Manifesto is our attempt to codify what's actually working for teams already living in this AI-accelerated world—11 principles that treat AI as a true development partner, not a fancy autocomplete.
The Core Tension: Generation vs. Integration
AI has revolutionized code generation. But it's also exposed a new bottleneck: moving generated code from concept to production. The manifesto addresses this head-on.
A few principles that matter most:
Let AI write first, but own the merge. Start with AI. You own what gets committed. This isn't about AI replacing developers—it's about AI amplifying developer judgment.
If your laptop needs to stay open, you're the bottleneck. Principle 6 pushes toward async AI workflows. The best teams we've seen have agents working in the background while humans focus on architecture, edge cases, and decisions that actually require experience. When you close your laptop, work should continue.
Testing is still your job. Principle 8 isn't just about quality—it's about leveraging AI's ability to write tests while retaining human judgment about what needs testing and why.
Why This Matters Now
Early AI adopters learned these lessons through trial and error. They discovered that traditional code review breaks down under 10x PR volume. They realized that perfect AI-generated code is less valuable than good code that ships quickly. They figured out that domain knowledge—not syntax knowledge—is now your unfair advantage.
The manifesto distills those learnings into something actionable.
The Bigger Picture
The manifesto positions AI as the ultimate junior developer: incredibly productive, but requiring experienced oversight. This framing preserves human agency while maximizing AI leverage.
We're asking for feedback because we're all still figuring this out. The principles will evolve as tools improve and teams discover new patterns.
If you're already living in an AI-first development world—or still experimenting—we'd love your input. Check out the manifesto and tell us what's missing.
— Ry