The benefits of design patterns are well-established. We argue that these benefits can be further amplified across the system lifecycle. We present two contributions. First, we describe an approach to complementing existing informal pattern descriptions with precise pattern specifications. Our specification language captures the properties common across all applications of a pattern, while accommodating the variation that occurs across those applications. Second, we describe an approach to monitoring a system’s runtime behavior to determine whether the appropriate pattern specifications are respected. The monitoring code is generated automatically from the pattern specifications underlying the system’s design. We conclude with a discussion of how our contributions are beneficial across the software lifecycle.