Software Development

What is Vibe Coding?

Quick answer

Building software mainly by describing what you want to an AI tool in plain language and accepting the code it generates, with little manual coding.

Vibe Coding, explained

The phrase vibe coding was coined by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy in early 2025 to describe a casual style of programming in which the developer talks to an AI coding assistant, runs whatever it produces, and keeps iterating by describing problems rather than reading the code closely.

Vibe coding can be useful for prototypes, personal tools, and quick experiments. A shop owner might describe a simple stock-tracking page and get a working version in an afternoon. The risks grow when such code goes into production. Code that nobody fully understands may contain security flaws, poor error handling, or hidden costs, and it can be hard to maintain. For business-critical software, AI-generated code still needs review, testing, and someone accountable for it.

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