Working with AI
What is Vibe coding?
Vibe coding is building software by describing what you want to an AI tool (Lovable, Bolt, Cursor, Replit, v0) and accepting what it generates, iterating in plain language instead of writing the code yourself.
The term was coined by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy in early 2025 and went from joke to job description within a year. The tools are genuinely remarkable: a founder with no engineering background can get a working product (screens, database, login) in a weekend, compressing what used to be a $30k agency discovery phase into a subscription.
The pattern that follows is now so consistent it has its own service industry. The first 80% arrives fast. The last 20% (real authentication, payment edge cases, security policies, deployment, error handling) is exactly what the tools skip, because it is invisible in a demo. Common findings in AI-generated codebases: database security rules never enabled, API keys shipped in the frontend where any visitor can read them, permission checks that run in the browser where they can be bypassed, and no error handling beyond the happy path. None of this shows up until real users (or one curious attacker) arrive.
There is also a structural ceiling: these tools hold your project in the model’s context window, and once the codebase outgrows it, each new prompt fixes one thing and quietly breaks another. That is a physics problem, not a skill problem.
Our position, since we run a rescue service for exactly this: vibe coding is a legitimate way to start and the fastest idea-validation tool ever built. Treat the output as a strong first draft that needs an engineering pass before money and personal data touch it, and it is a gift. Ship it to production untouched and you are running an unaudited system in public.
Frequently asked
- Is vibe coding safe for production?
- Not without an engineering pass first. The tools generate the first 80% fast and skip exactly the invisible 20%: real authentication, payment edge cases, security policies, and error handling. Common findings in AI-generated codebases are database security rules never enabled, API keys shipped in the frontend, and permission checks that run in the browser where they can be bypassed. Treat the output as a strong first draft, not a finished system.
- Why do vibe-coded apps break as they grow?
- These tools hold your whole project in the model’s context window. Once the codebase outgrows it, each new prompt fixes one thing and quietly breaks another, because the model can no longer see the whole picture. That is a physics problem, not a skill problem, and no amount of better prompting removes the ceiling.
- Should I use vibe coding at all?
- Yes, for what it is good at. It is the fastest idea-validation tool ever built and a legitimate way to start, compressing what used to be a costly agency discovery phase into a weekend. Use it to prove the idea, then get an engineering pass before money and personal data touch it. We run a rescue service for exactly the apps that skipped that step.
Related terms
Wondering where this fits in your business?
The free AI audit maps your operations and shows the three systems we would build first, in plain language like this.
