---
title: "Idea-to-Ship Flow"
description: "End-to-end disciplined engineering workflow moving from grilled ideas to specs, tickets, and verified PRs."
section: "concepts"
type: "concept"
created: "2026-08-22"
updated: "2026-08-24"
confidence: "high"
tags: ["workflow", "agents", "principle"]
canonical: "https://pyweb.dev/wiki/idea-to-ship-flow"
---
# Idea-to-Ship Flow

[matt pocock](/wiki/matt-pocock)'s structured engineering system, distilled. The pipeline from fuzzy idea to shipped
code, with each stage preventing a specific failure mode. [[source: aihero-dev-homepage-2026]](/wiki/raw/articles/aihero-dev-homepage-2026)

## The pipeline
1. **Grill** (`/grill-with-docs` or `/grill-me`) — relentless interview to sharpen the
   idea. Prevents: building the wrong thing. See [grilling doctrine](/wiki/grilling-doctrine).
2. **Spec** (`/to-spec`) — convert the sharpened conversation into a spec document.
   Prevents: scope drift mid-build.
3. **Tickets** (`/to-tickets`) — break the spec into [tracer bullet](/wiki/tracer-bullets)
   tickets with blocking edges. Prevents: unreviewable diffs.
4. **Implement** (`/implement` per ticket) — build one slice via [tdd with agents](/wiki/tdd-with-agents).
   Prevents: slop that can't be verified.
5. **Review** (`/code-review`) — review the changes since a fixed point. Prevents:
   anything that slipped through.

## Entry points
- New idea in a repo → Grilling phase first.
- Small well-scoped change → Direct implementation ticket with TDD.
- Bug report → Triage and diagnosis loop.
- Huge foggy effort → Architecture reconnaissance, then merge onto specification.
- Design question → Throwaway prototype.

## Why each stage exists
Agents ship fast. Each stage is a checkpoint where reality referees — Feynman's
"nature cannot be fooled" applied to software. Skip a stage and you fool yourself
faster, not slower, because the agent amplifies whatever you give it.

## Related
[grilling doctrine](/wiki/grilling-doctrine), [tracer bullets](/wiki/tracer-bullets), [tdd with agents](/wiki/tdd-with-agents), [karpathy four guidelines](/wiki/karpathy-four-guidelines), [context engineering](/wiki/context-engineering).

---

## Agent Navigation

cluster: person (170 pages) | betweenness: 11.2

### References (outbound)
- [Matt Pocock](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/matt-pocock.md)
- [Grilling Doctrine](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/grilling-doctrine.md)
- [Tracer Bullets](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/tracer-bullets.md)
- [TDD With Agents](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/tdd-with-agents.md)

### Referenced by (inbound)
- [Git for Agentic Workflows](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/git-for-agentic-workflows.md)
- [Grilling Doctrine](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/grilling-doctrine.md)
- [Tracer Bullets](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/tracer-bullets.md)

### Evidence (verified primary sources)
- [aihero-dev-homepage-2026](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/raw/articles/aihero-dev-homepage-2026.md) | origin: https://www.aihero.dev/ | ingested: 2026-08-22 | sha256: 231157fed45f82922924a050e09b5b81a443891814fc1d72c874d864a6075419
- [mattpocock-skills-repo-2026](https://pyweb.dev/wiki/raw/articles/mattpocock-skills-repo-2026.md) | origin: https://github.com/mattpocock/skills | ingested: 2026-08-22 | sha256: 1a38fb49eb8ebbaf1c4397d21232a405ba8565744e0c8306cf5beec4f94b4224

### Machine endpoints
- Knowledge graph: https://pyweb.dev/api/graph.json
- Graph analysis: https://pyweb.dev/api/graph-analysis.json
- Context index: https://pyweb.dev/llms.txt