Essay

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

Kent Beck, Martin Fowler, and 15 co-authors · agilemanifesto.org Free Beginner

The single line "working software over comprehensive documentation" is the whole defense against a developer building the wrong thing, and this is where it comes from. It is short, canonical, and reframes the founder's job as insisting on seeing something that runs, early and often, rather than trusting a plan or a spec. Read it as the principle behind every "show me a demo" instinct.

• The core value, working software over comprehensive documentation, means your best signal is a running build you can see, not a status update or a document.
• Responding to change over following a plan gives a non-technical founder permission to course-correct the moment a demo looks wrong.
• It is a one-page foundational text from 2001 that still underpins how modern teams (and Lean Startup) argue for shipping early and learning fast.