Originally written in French. Translated by AI — the meaning has been preserved, not the prose.
Short definition
Building software by stating the intent to a code assistant rather than writing the code yourself, and steering production by successive trials on the running product.
Full definition
The term was born in the public use of code assistants and designates there above all a way of working: describe what you want, let the tool write, look at the result, adjust. In that usage it carries a connotation of improvisation, and often a touch of irony — you code "on instinct", with no prior plan.
In the articles on this blog, the term is used without value judgment and is delimited by three traits. First, the person steering doesn't write the code and doesn't read all of it. Next, verification goes through using the product and through tests rather than through reading. Finally, the practice bears on a product — screens, internal APIs, data changes, architecture choices — and not on a utility script whose output fits in one function.
That third trait is what separates vibe coding from the script delegation long practised with a language model: delegating the writing of a script leaves a short, rereadable object, vibe coding leaves a system you don't reread.
Usage in the field
The term serves to raise two questions that "developing with AI" doesn't: in what perimeter is this practice acceptable, and with what safeguards. It appears whenever it is a matter of arbitrating what a non-developer profile — Product Manager, support, ops, business — has the right to produce themselves.
Synonyms and variants
"To vibe-code" as a verb. "Developing with an assistant" is its neutral formulation, but it implies neither the absence of rereading nor steering by use.
Not to be confused with
- Development assistance — a developer writes their code with an assistant's help, rereads what is produced and remains able to explain it line by line. The output competence is intact.
- No-code — building an application by assembling elements in a closed environment, with no code produced and no access to the repository. Vibe coding produces real code, in a real repository, with the consequences of both.
- Product builder — a role, not a practice: someone who builds in the extension of the company's product. You can vibe-code without being a product builder, and the reverse.
Examples
A Product Manager who, in four days and more than a hundred and eighty commits, starts from zero and obtains screens, internal APIs, several hundred tests and documentation generated from the code, without writing the lines themselves.
Ambiguities / debates
Ordinary usage makes the term sometimes an amateur practice to be discouraged, sometimes a new production norm. Both usages are attested. The sense retained here is descriptive: vibe coding names the practice, and what is debated is its perimeter, not its legitimacy in principle.
The degree of rereading also varies from speaker to speaker: some call vibe coding any assisted production, including fully reread. Here, the absence of complete rereading is part of the definition.