Agile isn't agile when it becomes a proscribed methodology complete with tooling as it violates the final point of the Agile Manifesto:
Responding to change over following a plan
The whole point was to be agile enough to work in a manner that's most effective your team and organization - and even that may change on a project-by-project bases if different stakeholders are involved.
I wanted to leave this comment, but now I’m going to have to leave a helpful correction to your comment instead: prescribed is closer to “forced”, or “made the rule”, than to “recommended”. :)
Yep. The issue has never been "Agile" the issue has always been a desire for command and control, leading to a bunch of "sounds good" ideas with lots of side effects.
There's no scope creep with agile, only responding to feedback.
TBF, while the Agile Manifesto really truck a cord, it wasn't saying anything concrete (talk to each other, collaborate, be flexible, react to reality etc.), that of course by design.
So any actual working system can be stamped as "not agile" as surely there will be some aspect that is not perfect.
My favorite was "Customer collaboration over contract negotiation": a contract is there to protect both parties, so of course it will be central to a project and people will preferably stick to it, even adjust it when it doesn't fit the bill anymore. So in any case where things go wrong for whatever reason, we can inevitably say more collaboration was needed and that Agile principle wasn't respected.
That probably comes from the same sentiment as parents telling their kid to not fall from their bike, it's in human nature.
> it wasn't saying anything concrete (talk to each other, collaborate, be flexible, react to reality etc.)
No, there is something concrete there: No managers. Traditionally those would be the concern of the manager. Agile says it best be the concern of the developers.
Which, of course, is Agile's whole deal. It is all about self-organization. The Twelve Principles goes into more detail about what to think about in the absence of managers; to ensure that developers take over the jobs that managers would traditionally do.
Ironically, it seems only managers have an interest in Agile, in a bastardized form, as a way to push their workload off onto others, but without giving up their paycheque. Which is also why we're seeing a death spiral now. With higher interest rates seeing businesses cracking down on the work being done, managers are finding it necessary to shape up and start doing their job again.
Responding to change over following a plan
The whole point was to be agile enough to work in a manner that's most effective your team and organization - and even that may change on a project-by-project bases if different stakeholders are involved.