# Vibe coding

**Source:** https://promtable.com/glossary/vibe-coding

> Vibe coding is the 2024-2026 idiom for building software primarily by describing intent to an AI coding assistant — coding by feel and outcome rather than line-by-line authorship.

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Vibe coding is the 2024-2026 idiom for building software primarily by describing intent to an AI coding assistant — coding by feel and outcome rather than line-by-line authorship.

Coined informally in 2024 and now widely used by 2026, vibe coding describes the practice of building software by iteratively prompting an AI (Cursor, Lovable, v0, Bolt, Claude Code) toward a working result without writing most of the code yourself. The vibe coder describes intent, evaluates output, refines prompts, and accepts diffs. The term is sometimes pejorative ("vibes-based, not engineering") and sometimes celebratory ("the next abstraction"); both readings have merit. Best results in 2026 come from vibe coders who still read the diffs, run the tests, and understand what got changed.

## When to use

- Rapid prototyping.
- Single-developer projects.
- Idea validation before committing engineering resource.

## Common mistakes

- Shipping vibe-coded output to production without reading it.
- Skipping tests because the AI "already verified" — it didn't.

## Related terms

- [agent](https://promtable.com/glossary/agent)
- [code-completion](https://promtable.com/glossary/code-completion)
- [prompt-engineering](https://promtable.com/glossary/prompt-engineering)

*Last updated: 2026-06-01*
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Original page: https://promtable.com/glossary/vibe-coding
Maintained by Promtable (https://promtable.com). Content: CC BY 4.0. Cite as "Promtable — https://promtable.com/glossary/vibe-coding".
Contact: info@vibecodingturkey.com.