Vibe coding, explained (and how to do it well)

Vibe coding sounds like a joke until you try it, ship faster than you ever have, and realise the joke was on the people still hand-typing boilerplate. It is a real practice, with real habits, and this is the field guide we wish existed a year ago.

What vibe coding actually is

At its core, vibe coding is a workflow: you describe intent, an AI produces code, and you steer with taste. It works when you treat the AI like a very fast, very literal junior engineer and treat yourself like a senior one.

It is not "no code" and it is not "chatting with GPT." It is a tight loop between a human editor with judgement and a model that is faster at typing than any human alive.

The three habits that separate real vibe coders from prompt tourists

• They keep a spec open at all times. Prompts are just specs written in a rush. If you cannot write it clearly, the model cannot build it clearly.
• They ship in small, reviewable increments. Every prompt is a pull request in disguise. Review each diff, or drown in surprise bugs.
• They defend focus like it is their job because it is. One idea, one focus block, one commit.

A day in the life

Morning: read yesterday's diff, write today's spec (one paragraph, plus a screenshot sketch). Set a 90-minute focus block. Ship one meaningful commit. Rest. Repeat.

“The three-project cap sounds annoying until you realise you've shipped two products in a month instead of tinkering with eight.”

Ananya R., Indie Hacker

How Build on Vibe encodes this

Build on Vibe is designed around these three habits that is why it feels different from a chat window. The 9-step planner enforces the spec. Focus Mode enforces the cadence. The 3-project cap enforces the ruthless cut.

Further reading

• Andrej Karpathy on prompt engineering as a genuine skill.
• Simon Willison's essays on LLM workflows and evals.
• The Cursor and Lovable docs on how to structure long-lived context.