Why SDD Breaks Down in Microservices—Part 3: Distributed Systems Need Distributed Context

In microservices, spec-driven development with an LLM needs architecture-level context, not just local specs. This article shows how machine-readable service contracts and a plan-first workflow (archspec, a Claude Code plugin) give the model that context: it resolves cross-service rules while planning, catches them before any code, and turns each one into a test. It's a practical way to make AI-driven specs hold up across services.