What I felt using
In my last post, I talked about the moment vibe coding stops feeling magic — when you open the project to change one thing and realize you can't find anything. (last post: https://dev.to/redo_c_ebiv/i-built-a-saas-in-a-weekend-heres-what-broke-first-1me1)
After that, I did what any reasonable person would do. I went looking for tools that could help me understand what the AI had built. I tested everything I could find. Enterprise tools. Free extensions. ChatGPT. The works.
Here's what I found — and what nobody's building yet.
Section 1: The tools that exist (and who they're actually for)
I started with the big names.
- Sourcegraph Cody — indexes your entire repo and lets you ask questions about it. Genuinely impressive. Requires IDE integration and setup. Built for enterprise teams.
- Greptile — raised $180M. Builds a code graph and does autonomous investigation. Requires GitHub/GitLab integration. Also enterprise-first.
- Swimm — auto-generates documentation that stays in sync with your code. Has COBOL support, which tells you something about who they're building for.
- CodeSee — creates visual maps of your codebase. Great for dependency visualization.
These are genuinely impressive tools. They're also built for professional developers working in teams. IDE integration required. GitHub/GitLab setup required. Enterprise pricing.
If you're a vibe coder who built something with Cursor last weekend, this is like being handed the keys to a Formula 1 car when you just learned to ride a bike.
Then there's the accessible stuff:
- Denigma — paste code, get a plain English explanation. Nice, but it works snippet by snippet. You still have to find the snippet.
- CodeVisualizer (VS Code extension) — generates flowcharts from functions. Requires VS Code.
- ChatGPT/Claude — can explain code if you paste it in. The most accessible option.
Section 2: The hidden assumption every tool makes
Every single tool I tested — every one — assumes you know what to ask.
Cody waits for your question. ChatGPT waits for your paste. Cursor's codebase understanding kicks in when you type a query.
But here's the thing about being a vibe coder who just hit the "I can't navigate my own project" wall: you don't know what to ask. You don't even know what you don't know.
I tried asking ChatGPT: "explain this project."
It said: "This is a Next.js application with Prisma ORM and Auth.js for authentication."
Yeah. I know that. That's like asking someone to explain your house and they say "it has walls."
What I actually needed: "This app has 7 features. The login flow touches these 3 files. The task creation goes through this path. If you want to change the dashboard layout, start here."
Feature-level understanding. Not file-level. Not line-level. Feature-level.
Nobody offers this.
Section 3: The real competition — and why it's not what you think
The biggest potential competitor isn't a startup. It's Cursor and Claude Code themselves.
They already understand your project. If Cursor added a "show me all features in this project" button tomorrow, the game changes.
But right now, they don't have it. Their codebase understanding is powerful but reactive — it answers questions. It doesn't proactively map your project for you.
The second biggest competitor is just... asking the AI to explain things one file at a time. It works. It's slow. It's like exploring a city by asking for directions at every single intersection instead of looking at a map first.
Section 4: The gap — and what I'm building to fill it
After testing everything, the pattern became clear.
The entire "understand your code" space is built around one assumption: the user is a developer (or at least developer-adjacent) who can formulate technical questions.
Vibe coders can't. Not yet. They need a different entry point.
That's why I'm building redoCebiv (read it backwards — it's "vibeCoder").
You upload a ZIP of your project. The AI analyzes it and extracts a list of features — not files, not functions, but things like "user logs in," "task gets added," "notification is sent." You pick one, and it shows you which files are involved and how the flow works. In plain language.
No questions needed. The tool does the asking for you.
It supports Next.js, Vue, Flutter, Swift, Rails, and more. Currently in beta prep.
Section 5: Even if you never use redoCebiv
The pattern matters more than the tool.
Before you modify anything in a vibe-coded project, map it first. Start from features, not files.
You can do a rough version of this manually: ask your AI "list every user-facing feature in this project, and for each one, list the files involved." It won't be as clean as a dedicated tool, but it's better than opening files at random.
Karpathy himself moved on from "vibe coding" to "agentic engineering" in early 2026 — the idea that AI leverage shouldn't come at the cost of quality and understanding. The industry is heading this way. Understanding what you shipped is becoming the skill, not shipping itself.
Closing
Vibe coding gave us the ability to build. The next phase is the ability to own what we built.
The best vibe coders of 2026 won't be the fastest shippers — they'll be the ones who understand what they shipped.
If you've hit the wall I described in Part 1, and you want a tool that meets you where you are — the waitlist is open.
I'm building redoCebiv to make this easier — pick a feature like "user logs in" or "task gets added," and it shows you which files are involved and how the flow works. Waitlist open if you're curious.
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