dev-tools

Vibe Coding

Vibe coding is building software by conversing with an AI coding assistant and largely accepting its output without reading every line — describing what you want, running the result, and pasting errors back until it works. Andrej Karpathy coined the term in early 2025, and it captured a real shift: tools like Cursor, Claude Code, and Replit make it possible to ship working prototypes with minimal manual editing. For SaaS builders it dramatically compresses the idea-to-demo loop, which is why it dominates hackathons and early validation. The trade-off is accountability: code nobody read accumulates hidden assumptions, security gaps, and technical debt, and debugging a system you never internalized is slow. Mature teams treat vibe coding as a prototyping mode — great for spikes and internal tools — and reintroduce code review, tests, and architectural oversight before anything touches production or customer data.

Related terms

More Dev Tools terms