VDD vs Agentic delivery frameworks
Agentic delivery frameworks reorganize roles, cadence, and artifacts around AI agents that write code. VDD works one layer up: it defines the unit of delivery, its price, its acceptance, and its forecast. The two answer different questions, and they work together.
At a glance
Dimension
VDD
A typical agentic delivery framework
Question it answers
What was delivered, what it costs, when it counts as done, when it will be finished
How the team is organized to build with AI agents
Unit of work
Verified Delivery Unit, counted in Bricks
A user story or specification handed to agents
Who estimates
Counted from the decomposition, priced by calibrated rates
Often the team that will build it, by its own judgment
Who verifies
An engineer who did not build the Unit
Quality engineers inside the delivery team
Price basis
Base Unit Rate per category, from the organization's own history
Often, fixed price
Forecast
P50/P85 from weekly throughput
Varies by framework
Cadence and roles
Not prescribed, use any
Defined by the framework
Why it changed
Agentic frameworks are right: the bottleneck has shifted. When agents write the code, the scarce skills are specifying the work and checking what comes back. Most of them solve the first half with better specifications and a new team structure.
The second half, checking, is where VDD is strict. Verification is counted in Bricks, priced like any other work, and done by someone who did not build the Unit. Let your framework organize the team and its cadence. Let VDD define what each delivered story costs and when it counts as done.
How the concepts map
Agentic delivery framework
VDD
Specification or executable story
Delivery Unit, decomposed into Bricks
Team estimate
Brick count × Base Unit Rate
In-team quality gate
Independent Verification Gate
Release cadence
Unchanged; P50/P85 dates on top
No equivalent
P50/P85 delivery dates
Questions
Do we need to change our team structure to use VDD?
No. VDD applies to whatever your team delivers. However, the team is organized.
Does VDD care whether code is written by people or agents?
No. Bricks count finished, verifiable artifacts. The counting rules do not depend on how the code was produced, and the verification rules apply to both.