Vibe coding
Vibe coding is building software by describing what you want in plain language and letting an AI write, run and revise the code — while you steer by looking at the result. Here is what it is, where it works, where it breaks, and twenty guides to get good at it.
Updated 2026-10-02 · 9 min read
A way of making software in which you describe the outcome in natural language, an AI model writes the code, and you judge the running result instead of reading every line.
The phrase comes from Andrej Karpathy, who in February 2025 described a way of programming where you "fully give in to the vibes" — you talk to the model, accept its changes and steer by what you see, without reading every diff.
Within a year it named a whole category: browser builders that turn a sentence into a running app — Vantix, Lovable, Bolt, v0 — and AI-first editors such as Cursor that do the same inside a developer's codebase. The tools comparison covers how they differ.
You describe behaviour and feel; the model handles the language features.
Arguments about requirements end when everyone can click the thing.
One change per prompt. Big rewrites are where vibe-coded projects go wrong.
The model proposes; you decide what stays. Taste is still a human job.
If you cannot export it, you rented an app. Real code is the point.
Payments, permissions and personal data deserve a careful look — or a reviewer.
The basics, the words and what is possible.
Prompts, habits and fixing what breaks.
From MVP to a paid product.
Tools and approaches, compared.
Describe something small. Watch it run in under a minute.