Design Concept
Konsep Desain
The shared understanding of what is being built, held in common between user and agent but separate from any asset.
A design concept is the shared understanding of what is being built. It lives between the user and the agent, not in any single file, and it is the thing the code is an expression of. Two people can agree on a design concept while disagreeing about every detail of the implementation.
It is worth separating from the assets because the concept is what survives when the assets change. The code gets rewritten, the spec gets edited, the prototype gets thrown away, and the concept is still there to steer the next round. A session that skips straight to code has skipped the part that decides whether the code is the right code.
It is also the thing that is easiest to lose. When a new session starts, the concept is not in the files unless somebody wrote it down, and the agent will happily build a reasonable interpretation of a different design. This is what grilling and prototyping are for: getting the concept explicit before it gets expensive.
Related terms
Grilling
A technique for developing a design concept: the agent interviews the user one decision at a time.
Prototyping
Having the agent build a quick, rough version when conversation is too low-fidelity and you need a real artefact to talk about.
Spec
A written description of what to build, written before building it.
Context Engineering
Deciding what goes into the model's context, and what stays out.
Handoff
Moving work from one session, or one agent, to another without losing the thread.
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