Agile is a set of methods and practices built on the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto, published in February 2001 by seventeen software practitioners meeting at a Utah ski resort — including representatives of Extreme Programming, Scrum, and other lightweight methodologies frustrated with documentation-heavy, waterfall-style development.

The manifesto rests on four values and twelve principles favoring working software over comprehensive documentation, responding to change over following a rigid plan, and collaboration over rigid contract negotiation. In practice, agile emphasizes iterative delivery, self-organizing and cross-functional teams, sustainable pace, and treating simplicity — maximizing the work not done — as essential rather than incidental. Agile itself is a philosophy rather than a prescriptive process; 📝Scrum is the most widely adopted framework for implementing it.