vibe coding

Meaning

Vibe coding is writing software by telling an AI what you want in everyday language and letting it generate the code, often without carefully reading or understanding every line it produces.1 2

How “vibe coding” is used

Tone: Informal; tech slang that has entered mainstream dictionaries.
Where you’ll see it: People use it for personal tools, prototypes, and side projects built with chat-based coding assistants. It can be a compliment for shipping fast, or a critique when the code is hard to maintain.

Examples

I vibe-coded a weekend dashboard and only opened the files when something broke.
The team banned vibe coding on the payment service because nobody could review the diffs.

Examples are written for this site to show typical use. They are not quotes.

Usage notes

Also written as one word, vibecoding; the verb form is vibe code.
Dictionary definitions emphasize accepting imperfect, AI-generated code in exchange for speed.
It usually refers to natural-language prompting of AI coding tools, not ordinary autocomplete.

Origin

The phrase is widely credited to Andrej Karpathy, who described “vibe coding” in a February 2025 post about fully giving in to AI-assisted coding and forgetting that the code even exists.1

Sources

vibe coding — Merriam-Webster Slang (opens in a new tab)
merriam-webster.comAccessed October 22, 2026Back to text
https://www.merriam-webster.com/slang/vibe-coding
vibe coding — Cambridge English Dictionary (opens in a new tab)
dictionary.cambridge.orgAccessed October 22, 2026Back to text
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/vibe-coding