ENSO
Enso (円相) is the Zen circle—continuous, self-correcting, never complete.
As a methodology, it's grounded in one principle:
No spec, no work.
The Problem
AI-assisted development has revealed what was always true: most organizations have no systematic way to verify that outputs match intent.
Teams debate where to store docs. Templates are loosely followed. Specs rot. Reality drifts. Six months later, the documentation describes a system that no longer exists.
Now add AI that generates code faster than humans can review it—with predictable vulnerability patterns, no awareness of your constraints, and no memory of what it built yesterday.
The result: faster chaos.
The Methodology
Enso inverts the typical approach. Documentation isn't an afterthought—it's the contract for what will be built.
Spec → Execute → Validate → Improve → Spec
The loop closes. Every cycle.
Specification
The spec defines what should exist. Not a description of what was built—a contract for what will be built. Machine-consumable, not just human-readable.
Execution
Build against the spec. AI-assisted or human—the process is the same.
Validation
Verify bidirectionally. Does the output match the spec? Does the spec account for all outputs? Security constraints verified in the loop, not bolted on at deploy.
Improvement
Gaps surface. Either the spec was wrong or the execution was wrong. Fix the right one. Update. Continue.
Why This Matters More as AI Improves
Better models won't solve this. LLMs won't read minds.
They'll get better at asking questions. They'll get better at inferring intent. But unless we're willing to trust black boxes completely, explicit specs and validation loops become more critical, not less.
More capability = more output = more surface area for things to go wrong.
The need for methodology increases with every model improvement.
Security Is Embedded
I've worked the intelligence side—building threat analysis platforms, understanding how adversarial infrastructure operates. Offense has fully automated. Every new product is scanned within hours of deployment.
Bolted-on security scanning catches yesterday's vulnerabilities. Enso embeds security validation in the continuous loop. Specs include security constraints. Validation includes security verification.
Not optional. Not afterthought.
Where It's Applied
Enso is currently in production at LifeChef, a HIPAA-compliant HealthTech platform.
Results
- Feature delivery compressed from weeks to days
- Documentation drift caught automatically
- New engineers onboard against verified specs
- Security validation continuous, not periodic
The methodology is domain-agnostic. It applies anywhere outputs must match intent—software, clinical protocols, legal compliance, content production.