The first time I heard the term “vibe coding,” I laughed. It sounded like something out of a meme like coding while listening to lo-fi beats and hoping the bugs fix themselves.
But then it happened to me.
One evening, I had to spin up a quick API for a side project. Normally, that would mean hours of boilerplate: setting up routes, connecting to MongoDB, wiring JWT authentication. Instead, I opened my AI powered editor and typed:
“Create an Express.js API with register, login, and profile endpoints. Use JWT for auth and connect it to MongoDB.”
I expected a mess. But in seconds, the screen filled with code. A few tweaks later, it was running. That was my first taste of vibe coding describing the vibe of what you want to build and letting the AI draft it for you.
It’s not a new framework, not a hidden library it’s more like pair programming with an overeager intern. You give it directions, it produces something fast, and you spend your time steering, correcting, and refining.
Of course, it’s not magic. Sometimes the AI gives you code that looks right but fails silently. Other times it writes solutions you’d never put in production. Debugging its mistakes feels like reading someone else’s half-finished homework.
Still, I couldn’t ignore the shift. Instead of spending hours on setup, I could jump straight to the interesting parts. The boring, repetitive code? Offloaded. The big picture? That’s where I stayed focused.
That’s the heart of vibe coding: moving away from how to build and leaning into what to build. You don’t dictate every keystroke; you describe the outcome, then step in as the editor, the architect, the quality gatekeeper.
And maybe just maybe that’s where development is headed. In a few years, coding might look less like typing out functions and more like crafting the perfect prompt. The job won’t disappear, but the skillset will shift: clarity, guidance, and knowing when to take back the wheel.
So what is vibe coding? It’s the messy, exciting middle ground between human creativity and AI autocomplete. It’s coding by description, shaping ideas into software with less grind and more flow.
It’s real, it’s imperfect and if you haven’t tried it yet, you probably will soon.
Top comments (0)