Our foundation
The Manifesto for Agile Software Development
The values and principles that have guided great teams for more than two decades — and that still anchor how Goodfire works today.
Why it still matters
Goodfire was built on Agile values, and we carry them forward into the age of AI. The Manifesto reminds us that technology serves people — not the other way around. As we help clients adopt AI and agentic "AI coworkers," these principles keep the work human-centered: delivering value early, welcoming change, and trusting motivated teams to do their best work. Below is the Manifesto in full, reproduced from agilemanifesto.org.
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- Working software over comprehensive documentation
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
The twelve principles
- Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
- Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
- Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
- Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
- Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
- The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
- Working software is the primary measure of progress.
- Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
- Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
- Simplicity — the art of maximizing the amount of work not done — is essential.
- The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
- At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
The Agile Manifesto and its principles are reproduced from agilemanifesto.org and remain the work of their original authors.
Agile values, AI-era results
See how Goodfire applies these principles — augmented with AI — to deliver value faster and more responsibly.