vibe coding

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

Coined by Slovakian-Canadian AI researcher Andrej Karpathy in February 2025 (see quotation).

Pronunciation

  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˈvaɪb ˈkoʊ.dɪŋ/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

vibe coding (uncountable)

  1. (programming, neologism) A method of programming in which a developer generates code by repeatedly prompting a large language model, while having a very limited awareness of how the code actually functions.
    • [2025 February 2, @karpathy [Andrej Karpathy], X‎[1] (post), archived from the original on 11 October 2026:
      There's a new kind of coding I call "vibe coding", where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists.]
    • 2025 February 27, Kevin Roose, “Not a Coder? With A.I., Just Having an Idea Can Be Enough.”, in The New York Times‎[2], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 14 March 2025:
      Not all of my vibecoding experiments have been successful. I've been struggling for weeks to build an "inbox autopilot" tool capable of responding to my emails automatically, in my writing style. I've encountered roadblocks when trying to integrate A.I. work flows into apps like Google Photos and iOS Voice Memos, which aren't designed to play well with third-party add-ons.
    • 2025 March 5, Benj Edwards, “Will the future of software development run on vibes?”, in Ars Technica‎[3], archived from the original on 15 March 2025:
      With all this vibe coding going on, we had to turn to an expert for some input. Simon Willison, an independent software developer and AI researcher, offered a nuanced perspective on AI-assisted programming in an interview with Ars Technica. "I really enjoy vibe coding," he said. "It's a fun way to try out an idea and prove if it can work."
    • 2026 February 10, Ritoban Mukherjee, Owain Williams, “10 best vibe coding tools of 2026”, in Techradar‎[4], archived from the original on 17 February 2026:
      Of course, vibe coding isn't perfect, but picking the right tool will help iron out many potential hiccups - whether that be security concerns or limited budgets.
    • 2026 March 25, Russell Melia, “A startup lawyer vibe-coded an AI version of himself”, in Insider, US edition:
      The project is yet another example of "vibe coding," the trend of non-engineers using AI tools to build software by describing what they want in plain language. What once required a team of developers can now be prototyped by a lawyer in a number of days.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

vibe coding

  1. present participle and gerund of vibe code

References

Further reading

  • vibe coding on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
  • Marek Chotoborski (14 September 2026), “"Do You Still Read the Code?"”, in zanlib.dev‎[5], archived from the original on 5 October 2026:
    As far as I can tell, there are two prevalent approaches to using AI these days. ¶ Accelerators use AI to help translate their understanding into code. They intend to retain enough understanding of the implementation to explain the reasoning behind the translation from intent to code, anticipate the consequences of changes, and maintain the resulting model and its implementation. Reading the generated code is part of that commitment. […] Vibecoders aim to delegate implementation and its continued revision to AI. Their attention moves towards specifying the desired behaviour, supplying context and domain knowledge, and establishing ways to determine whether the result is satisfactory. Understanding every implementation detail is no longer an intended product of their work.
This page is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.