# Vibe Coding

> Building software by describing what you want to an AI model and steering the result, rather than writing the code yourself.

- Category: Process & Methods
- Canonical: https://www.themasterly.com/glossary/vibe-coding

Vibe coding is building software by describing what you want to an AI model and steering the result, rather than writing the implementation yourself. Andrej Karpathy [named it](https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383) on 2 February 2025, describing a way of working where you give in to the vibes and forget the code exists.

The name is deliberately unserious and the capability is not. For a class of work — prototypes, internal tools, the first version of something whose shape is unknown — it collapses a week into an afternoon.

## What it is genuinely good at

**Answering a question with a working thing.** A clickable artefact beats a description, and [prototyping](https://www.themasterly.com/glossary/prototyping) with real interaction used to cost enough that most questions went untested.

**Exploring several directions.** When a version costs an hour, three versions is a reasonable Tuesday. Committing to the first idea was always a budget decision rather than a design one.

**Internal tools.** Software with ten known users, no adversaries and no compliance surface is exactly where the generated happy path is sufficient.

**Getting to a decision faster.** The fastest way to find out that nobody wants something is to put a working version in front of them.

## What it does not produce

The model generates what it was asked about, and nobody asks about the unglamorous nine-tenths.

**States.** Empty, loading, partial, error, permission-denied. A generated screen assumes data exists and the request succeeded. See the state table under [UI design](https://www.themasterly.com/glossary/ui-design).

**Consistency across screens.** Each screen is generated in isolation, so the same control appears in three forms, spacing drifts, and a dialog behaves differently in each place. One screen at a time it looks fine; as a product it reads as incoherent. This is what a [design system](https://www.themasterly.com/glossary/design-system) exists to prevent.

**Behaviour at real volume.** The generated table holds six rows. The customer has ninety thousand.

**Permissions.** An admin, a member and a read-only viewer see different products, and the generated version usually knows about one of them.

**Accessibility.** Keyboard navigation, focus management, contrast, screen-reader behaviour. Generated markup is frequently divs where controls should be, and that is a rebuild rather than a fix.

**The decision about what to build.** The model is very good at making the thing you described and has no opinion about whether it was the right thing.

## The gap this creates, and why it matters commercially

The characteristic situation is now common enough to have a shape. Somebody builds something with an AI tool over a weekend. It demos well, and on the strength of the demo it gets shown to customers, or to investors, or to a board.

Then it has to become a product a company can actually run. That transition is not a polish pass. It usually means deciding the structure that was never decided, building the states that were never drawn, imposing consistency across screens that were each invented separately, and doing the accessibility and permission work from scratch.

Teams reach this point genuinely surprised, because the visible ninety per cent was free and the invisible ten per cent is where the work was. The honest framing is that vibe coding moved the starting line, not the finish.

## Using it well

**Prototype with it, decide with it, then decide again about the build.** The prototype answered a question. Whether its code is the foundation is a separate question with a different answer most of the time.

**Give it the constraints you already have.** Pointed at existing [design tokens](https://www.themasterly.com/glossary/design-token) and components, a model produces output that fits the product. Given nothing, it invents a new visual language every session.

**Ask for the unhappy paths explicitly.** They will not appear otherwise, and they are most of the screens.

**Review it as a design, not as a diff.** The question is whether this is the right arrangement, not whether the code runs. It usually runs.

## In practice

A founder builds a working dashboard over a weekend, shows three prospects, and gets two signed letters of intent. On that basis the company commits to shipping in a quarter.

The build takes two. Not because the generated code was bad, but because none of the following existed: any handling of an account with no data, a permissions model, a consistent table component across the five screens that each had their own, and a way for the interface to survive a customer with forty thousand records. The prototype also had no concept of who was logged in.

None of that was visible in the demo, and none of it was a failure of the tool. The weekend was a genuine saving on the part that used to take a week. The quarter that followed was the part that had never been done.

## Where teams get it wrong

- **Treating the prototype as the foundation.** It answered a question; that was its job.
- **Reviewing code instead of design.** It runs. That was never the risk.
- **Generating without constraints.** A new visual language every session.
- **Assuming the happy path is the product.** It is perhaps a tenth of the screens.
- **Skipping accessibility until procurement asks.** Retrofitting it across generated markup costs more than building it in.

## Related terms

- [Prototyping](https://www.themasterly.com/glossary/prototyping)
- [MVP](https://www.themasterly.com/glossary/mvp)
- [Design System](https://www.themasterly.com/glossary/design-system)
- [Product Design](https://www.themasterly.com/glossary/product-design)

## FAQ

**What is vibe coding?**

Building software by describing what you want in plain language and letting an AI model write the implementation, then nudging the output until it matches your intent. Andrej Karpathy named it on 2 February 2025, describing it as giving in to the vibes and forgetting the code exists.

**Is vibe coding good for prototypes?**

It is very good for them. A working, clickable thing in an afternoon answers questions a static mockup cannot, and if the answer is no, you have spent an afternoon. The trouble starts when the prototype is mistaken for the product.

**Can you ship a vibe-coded product?**

You can ship it; whether you can run it is the question. What gets generated is the happy path. Permissions, empty and error states, real data volume, accessibility and the parts that must stay consistent across forty screens are what the model was never asked about, and they are most of what a product is.

**What breaks first in a vibe-coded product?**

Consistency, usually. Each screen is generated independently, so the same control appears in several forms, spacing drifts, and states are handled differently in each place. It looks fine one screen at a time and incoherent as a product.

**Does vibe coding replace designers?**

It replaces the part of the work that was producing screens, which was never the scarce part. What it does not produce is a decision about which problem to solve, a structure that holds as the product grows, or the judgement to tell a plausible output from a good one — and it raises the value of those by making plausible output free.

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