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What Is Vibe Coding? Where the Term Came From and What It Means Now
What is vibe coding? Where the term came from, how its meaning shifted, how it differs from traditional coding, and what stays your job.
What is vibe coding? It's building software by describing what you want to an AI in everyday words, then judging the result by using it instead of reading the code. The term began as a playful label for throwaway weekend projects, and it has stretched a lot since. Who writes the code changed. Who answers to your customers didn't.
This guide is about the word itself, and about the line between vibe coding and the other ways software gets made. If you're ready to try it, our guide to vibe coding for beginners has the vocabulary and a first project. If you're deciding whether it's a good idea at all, is vibe coding bad? covers where it works and where it goes wrong.
What does vibe coding mean, exactly?
The short version: you talk, the AI writes the code, and you steer by what shows up on the screen. Merriam-Webster's dictionary entry defines it as using an artificial intelligence system to generate computer code. That's the broad, everyday meaning.
"Code" here means the written instructions that make software run. In vibe coding you rarely look at them. You look at the app they produce, try it, and say what to change. So the meaning really comes down to where your attention goes: programmers spend theirs on the code, and vibe coders spend theirs on the result.
Where did the term vibe coding come from?
From a single post on X. On 2 February 2025, the AI researcher Andrej Karpathy described a new kind of coding he called "vibe coding," and Merriam-Webster's entry says the term was apparently introduced there. Our guide on whether vibe coding is bad walks through what his post described, so I'll keep this part short.
The detail worth carrying forward is how narrow his version was. He was talking about accepting the AI's changes without reading them, and he pitched it for throwaway weekend projects. That narrowness is exactly what got lost next.
How has the vibe coding meaning shifted since then?
It got bigger, and fast. In March 2025, the programmer Simon Willison wrote on his blog that people were already applying "vibe coding" to every kind of code written with AI help, and that he worried the term was escaping its original intent.
His line is a useful one. To him, vibe coding means building with an AI without reviewing the code it writes. If you review that code, test it, and could explain how it works to someone else, he'd call it software development, with the AI as a helper.
Merriam-Webster uses the broad meaning, so today the word carries both:
- The narrow meaning. Building without reading the code at all, the way Karpathy described it.
- The broad meaning. Any building where an AI writes the code from your plain-language requests.
I don't think you have to pick a side in a word fight, because both meanings share the part that matters to a founder or builder: an AI writes it, and somebody still has to decide whether the result is any good.
How is vibe coding different from traditional coding?
The difference is who writes the instructions and what you check. In traditional coding, a person writes the code line by line in a programming language, so they understand the inside of the app because they built it.
In vibe coding, an AI app builder writes it from your description. Lovable is one example: its welcome page says you describe what you want and it generates a working application, front to back, including the database (the store where records like orders live). You judge the app from the outside, the way a visitor would.
Here's vibe coding vs traditional coding, side by side:
| Traditional coding | Vibe coding | |
|---|---|---|
| Who writes the code | A person | An AI, from your description |
| How you ask for a change | Edit the code | Describe the change in words |
| What you mostly check | The code and the app | The app |
| What it asks of you | A programming language | A clear idea of what "good" looks like |
Neither column is the lazy one. They just put the hard part in different places.
Is AI-assisted coding in an editor the same thing?
Not quite. Some programmers use AI inside a code editor (the program developers write code in) and still read and approve what it writes. Cursor's documentation, for instance, describes reviewing the AI's changes by inspecting diffs, the before-and-after view of exactly which lines changed. Our Cursor vs Lovable guide covers how that kind of tool differs from a chat-style builder.
So the review step is the whole difference. Reading the diffs is close to traditional coding, only faster. Accepting every change unread is vibe coding in Karpathy's sense, even in the same editor. Using a chat-style app builder and never opening the code is vibe coding in the everyday sense. Same kind of AI underneath, 3 different jobs for the human.
What does the same request look like done both ways?
Say there's a florist (we invented her) who wants a page where couples can pre-order wedding bouquets. A couple picks a bouquet style, enters the wedding date, chooses pickup or delivery, and gets a confirmation. Here it is done 2 ways.
| Step | The traditional way | The vibe coding way |
|---|---|---|
| Getting started | She explains the idea to a developer, who plans the pages and the database | She types the idea into an AI app builder |
| First look | A version arrives after the developer has built it | A clickable preview appears in the builder |
| Changes | She sends feedback, the developer edits the code | She describes the change, the AI edits the code, she looks again |
| Going live | The developer sets up hosting (the service that keeps a site online) and deploys it | She publishes from the builder |
| What still needs checking | Whether a couple can actually finish a pre-order | Whether a couple can actually finish a pre-order |
Look at that last row. Can a couple pick a date that's already passed? Does the confirmation say what happens next? Can they reach the florist if they change their minds about peonies? The method changed who typed the code. It didn't change who has to care about the couple.
What stays the human's job?
More than the hype suggests, and it happens to be the part only you can do. The AI can write a booking form, but it has no idea where your delivery area stops. These are the pieces I'd keep in your own hands:
- Deciding what the app is for. One job, in one sentence, before you ask for anything.
- Knowing your customer. Their words, their worries, and what "done" looks like to them.
- Checking the result. After every change, try it from the outside, on a phone as well as a laptop. The beginners guide calls this the ask, look, decide loop, and the deciding is the bit that makes it your app.
- Knowing your limits. If the app takes money or holds private information, our vibe coding security guide covers when to bring in someone who reads code.
None of that needs a programming language. It needs attention, which is free and, sadly, can't be delegated to the AI.
Why is the finished public app what customers judge?
Because it's the only part of your work they ever meet. Your prompts, your tool, and your code all stay out of sight, and what's left is a page at a link that has to convince someone a real business is behind it.
That's where vibe coding can drift into slop, meaning work that looks generated instead of made. Our guide on what AI slop is covers the word in full. For a vibe-coded page, one giveaway can be the AI builder's own defaults left in place, and that's one of the things our audit looks for when it reads a page.
For the florist, the 2 areas I'd care about most are Clarity and Promise (does the page say, right away, that this is where you pre-order wedding flowers?) and Trust and Legitimacy (is there a real way to reach her before handing over a wedding date?). The report ranks its fixes, so she'd know which one to tackle before the next couple shows up.
Where should you go from here?
If the florist is you, I'd start small: one page, one job, and a real customer trying it before the busy season. When it's live, our vibe coding checklist is a good last look before you share the link.
And if you've already built something, I'd look at it the way your customers will. Vibe coding hands the typing to the AI. The looking is still yours, and honestly, it's the fun part.
Sources, all read 13 October 2026: Andrej Karpathy's post on X (dated 2 February 2025), Merriam-Webster's dictionary entry for vibe coding (undated), Simon Willison's blog post "Not all AI-assisted programming is vibe coding (but vibe coding rocks)" (dated 19 March 2025), Lovable's documentation welcome page (undated), and Cursor's documentation home page (undated).