What is vibe coding?

Vibe coding is building software by describing what you want in plain language and letting an AI coding tool, Claude Code in my case, write the actual code. You review, test, and steer instead of typing syntax. Andrej Karpathy gave the practice its name in early 2025, half as a joke. The joke part didn't last: it's how I've shipped six products since March 2025 without a CS background.

A session, start to finish

Mine run 9 to 11 PM, after the kids are down. I open Claude Code and describe the next piece in ordinary sentences — the screen, the tap, the one thing that must never happen. The tool writes the code, and I react to results instead of syntax: run it, poke at it, say what's wrong, go again. On a good night the loop turns over enough times to finish the piece. On a bad night the fix for one thing quietly breaks another, and the evening goes to finding out why.

What vibe coding is not

It is not zero thinking. You still hold the product in your head: what it's for, who it serves, what "done" means tonight.

It is not zero responsibility. If the AI writes an insecure login and you ship it, that's your problem, not the model's. Coming from 25 years in security work, this is the part I take personally.

And it is not zero learning. Every session teaches you a little more about how software fits together, whether you asked for the lesson or not.

Where it breaks

The fair criticism: code you don't fully understand accumulates risk. At enterprise scale (a team, a decade of maintenance ahead) my approach would be reckless. At my scale, small products built by one person in close contact with users, it's the difference between shipping and never starting. Know which situation you're in before you take anyone's advice, including mine.

The tools

Claude Code is my primary tool; Cursor shows up occasionally. Web products run on Next.js, Supabase, and Vercel. Mobile is React Native, with new iOS builds moving to Swift and SwiftUI. Stripe for payments. Nothing exotic — the boring stack is the point, because every hour spent on infrastructure novelty is an hour not spent shipping.

If you're wondering whether this works without a technical background, that's the question I answer in can a non-technical person really build an app with AI. Short version: yes, with conditions.