Writing Use Cases for AI

Description

Welcome to the Leanpub Launch video for Writing Use Cases for AI: How to write use cases for stakeholders, engineers, and AI agents https://leanpub.com/writing-use-cases-for-ai by Simon Martinelli! 0:00 Simon introduces himself, his background as a software engineer and university teacher, and the AI Unified Process 0:45 The history of use cases: Ivar Jacobson's invention and Alistair Cockburn's influential guide 1:32 How the book combines classical use case frameworks with AI-focused writing guidance 2:18 The three readers of a use case: stakeholders, engineers, and AI agents 2:18 Anatomy of a use case: actors, pre/post conditions, main success scenario, and alternative flows 3:52 Why precision in writing matters more than ever when AI turns specifications directly into code 4:37 The human readability advantage of use cases: non-technical people can follow the flow 5:23 The biggest mistake when writing use cases for AI: use cases that are too large and combine multiple functions 6:16 Broader applicability of use case thinking beyond traditional software development 6:16 Why Leanpub's Markdown-based platform suits developer-authors like Simon About the Book For forty years, use cases have been the best tool we have for describing what a system must do. Ivar Jacobson invented them, Alistair Cockburn taught a generation to write them well, and Use-Case 3.0 connected them to modern agile delivery. All of that work assumed one thing: the reader of a use case is a human being. That assumption no longer holds. With AI code generation, a use case has a third reader: an AI agent that turns the specification directly into code and tests. Implementation has become cheap; expressing intent precisely is the new bottleneck. The specification is now the asset, and the code is its output. This guide teaches you to write use cases that work for all three readers: the stakeholders who validate them, the engineers who review against them, and the AI agents that implement from them. You'll learn: What actually changes when an AI reads your specification The classical fundamentals that still carry the weight: actors, goals, scope, and complete behavioral stories A practical specification template with a fully worked example How to write main scenarios and alternative flows an AI cannot misread Precision calibration: what to say, what to leave out, and how tests protect the gaps How to slice use cases for iteration, and how to handle change requests, bugs, and brownfield systems Checklists and common mistakes to keep open in a split pane while you write Part of the AI Unified Process, and a companion to Spec-Driven Development: From Specs to Code with AI Agents (Apress, 2026). Written for requirements engineers, business analysts, and software engineers who know use cases from Cockburn or Use-Case 3.0 and want the delta, not a rehash. About the Author Simon Martinelli is a Java Champion, Vaadin Champion, and Oracle ACE Pro with over three decades of experience as a software architect, developer, consultant, and trainer. He is the creator of the AI Unified Process (AIUP) and a strong advocate of Spec-Driven Development. As the owner of Martinelli LLC, he coaches teams to get up to speed with AI-driven development. He regularly shares his insights through international conferences, articles, and his blog, Keep IT Simple (https://martinelli.ch), where he writes about AI, architecture, and modern Java development. He is also a lecturer at three universities in Switzerland, where he teaches AI-driven software engineering, software architecture, persistence, DevOps, and cloud-native development. Follow the author here! https://x.com/simas_ch Thank you for watching, please like and leave a comment, we'd love to hear from you! Please Subscribe and Follow! YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/leanpub X: https://x.com/leanpub Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leanpub Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leanpub Create Your Own Leanpub Book! You can create your own book anytime here: https://leanpub.com/create/book Here's the tutorial showing how to write and publish a Leanpub book in your browser (it's free!): https://help.leanpub.com/en/articles/2932527-getting-started-writing-a-book-in-leanpub-s-web-browser-writing-mode If you're a Leanpub author and you'd like to submit your own Launch video for us to publish, or if you'd like to record a Launch video with Len, please go here: https://leanpub.com/launch. #books #leanpublishing #selfpublishing #leanpub #writing #softwareengineering #ai #computerprogramming #agile #UseCases #SpecDrivenDevelopment #AIAgents #RequirementsEngineering #AIUnifiedProcess