What is AI SDLC? Also called agentic SDLC
AI SDLC is the software development lifecycle rebuilt around coding agents: agents do the first pass at each stage, and named humans own the gates between stages. No single person coined the name, which is also written agentic SDLC or AI-native SDLC, and Anthropic’s playbook of 21 August 2026 treats the labels as one thing. Unlike vibe coding, it has stages and gates.
Origin No single person coined the name: Anthropic’s “The AI-native SDLC playbook” (opens in a new tab) of 21 August 2026 says the agentic SDLC and the AI SDLC describe the same thing, and Forrester (opens in a new tab) (8 June 2026) and Gartner (opens in a new tab) (23 June 2026) use “agentic SDLC” as well.
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Why it matters.
The name moves the question from the coding step to the whole lifecycle. Forrester estimated on 8 June 2026 that "Coding may improve by 30% to 40%, but if planning, testing, and release remain manual, overall team productivity often increases by less than 10%." The blog gives no method, so read it as an estimate. Anthropic’s playbook says line-by-line review "can't keep up once agents write most of the diff", so each stage commits an artifact and a named human checks the evidence at a gate.
AI SDLC vs vibe coding
Both let agents write the code. They differ in whether anything between the first prompt and production checks it.
| Question | Vibe coding | AI SDLC |
|---|---|---|
| What it names | A way of working: accept what the model writes without reading the diff | An operating model for the whole lifecycle: plan, design, build, test, deploy, maintain |
| Who writes the code | The model | Agents, as the first pass at each stage |
| Who checks it | Nobody reads the diff; the human watches the behaviour | Named humans at the gates, plus automated checks |
| What stops the loop | The app appears to work | Each stage ends when a named human accepts its artifact at a gate |
| Where the name came from | Andrej Karpathy, post on X, 2 February 2025 | No single coiner: Forrester (8 June 2026), Gartner (23 June 2026) and Anthropic (21 August 2026) use it |
| Where it breaks | GEICO’s Jet Anderson describes vibe-coded applications that “never went through any security process” | Gates that become rubber stamps, and artifacts that are written and never read |
AI SDLC vs AI-DLC
The two names are searched together and mean different things: one is a category, the other one AWS’s method.
| Compared on | AI SDLC | AI-DLC |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A generic category label for any lifecycle redesigned around agents | One named methodology from AWS, with an open-source implementation |
| Owner | Nobody; Anthropic, Gartner, Forrester and others use it | AWS (Raja SP and his team) |
| First dated source | No single origin | AWS blog post, 31 July 2025 |
| Phases | Usually the classic six: plan, design, build, test, deploy, maintain | Three in AWS’s 2025 post (Inception, Construction, Operations); five phases and 33 stages in the open-source workflow at v2.11.0, read on 10 October 2026 |
| Vocabulary | Reuses SDLC words | Replaces them: “bolts” for sprints, Units of Work for epics, “Mob Elaboration”, “Mob Construction” |
| Spelling trap | “SDLC” keeps the S for “software” | “AI-DLC” drops “Software”; AWS writes both “Lifecycle” and “Life Cycle” |
Questions about AI SDLC.
How is an AI SDLC different from vibe coding?
Vibe coding, in Andrej Karpathy’s original sense of 2 February 2025, means accepting AI-written code without reading it. An AI SDLC is a lifecycle: each stage commits an artifact and a named human accepts it at a gate. Forrester’s Diego Lo Giudice (8 June 2026) puts vibe coding at the front of that lifecycle: "Product managers/owners vibe prototypes and features for the rest of the team to productize."
Is AI-DLC the same as AI SDLC?
No. AI SDLC names any software lifecycle redesigned around agents, and nobody owns it. AI-DLC is a specific methodology from AWS: Raja SP introduced it on 31 July 2025, and it swaps sprints for "bolts" and epics for Units of Work. Even the spelling differs, because AI-DLC drops the word "software". In short, AI SDLC is the category and AI-DLC is one AWS-branded method inside it.
Are the agentic SDLC, the AI SDLC and the AI-native SDLC the same thing?
Anthropic says so: "You'll also hear this shift called the agentic SDLC, the AI SDLC, or simply agentic software development — the labels differ, but they describe the same thing." (Louis Claxton, 21 August 2026). The ADLC is different: LangChain uses it for the Agent Development Lifecycle, which connects four stages, build, test, deploy and monitor, for an agent you are building.
How is an AI SDLC different from a traditional SDLC?
Anthropic’s playbook: "Instead of a linear flow, the process becomes a loop, and AI is embedded at each point." Line review stops scaling, so each stage commits an artifact (intent, spec, plan, diff with tests, pull request, incident record) and a named human owns the gate. "Humans remain accountable for every decision that requires judgment."
The vocabulary of AI-driven development
Every name below is defined against vibe coding: who writes the code, who checks it, and what stops the loop.
Read the long-form guide: agentic engineering vs vibe coding
Sources.
The primary sources outside this site that this page relies on.
- The AI-native SDLC playbook (opens in a new tab) Louis Claxton, Anthropic
- Agentic Software Development Takes The Lead: From Code Assistants To Orchestrated SDLC Agents (opens in a new tab) Diego Lo Giudice, Forrester
- Checklist for Successful Adoption of Agentic AI in the SDLC (opens in a new tab) Neha Agarwal, Gartner
- The Agentic SDLC: Why Most of What We Do in Software Security Has to Change (opens in a new tab) Jet Anderson, GEICO Tech Blog
- What is an AI agent? (opens in a new tab) Jess Ou, LangChain
- AI-Driven Development Life Cycle: Reimagining Software Engineering (opens in a new tab) Raja SP, AWS DevOps & Developer Productivity Blog
Keep reading.
The guides that go deeper, and the terms and comparisons next to this one.
In the docs
- The full A-Z glossarySubscription
- Vibe coding vs agentic engineering: 21 terms comparedFree
- The AI-native software development lifecycleSubscription
- One map: the autonomy ladder, the lifecycle and the factory stationsFree
- The autonomy ladder: which level is your workflow at?Free
- Prototype policy: graduate by risk and evidenceSubscription
Related terms
Comparisons
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