Vibe Coding Is Real: I Built a Working App From Prompts

This year I built a real, usable web app without writing most of the code myself. I described what I wanted in plain English and the AI handled the rest. Here is the honest field report.

What "vibe coding" actually is

You give an AI assistant a goal — "a simple habit tracker with a weekly view" — and it writes the code, styling and structure. You steer with follow-ups: "make it darker", "add a reset button".

What surprised me

• It is genuinely fast. What took me a weekend now takes an afternoon.
• The code is decent. For a small app: clean, commented, mostly idiomatic.
• Debugging is conversational. "It breaks when I clear the list" — and it fixes itself.

What frustrated me

• The bill. Long sessions burn tokens fast. Set a budget.
• The codebase bubble. Beyond a few files, context starts slipping and you get contradictions.
• Security. AI writes 90% correct code. The missing 10% is auth edge cases and injection. Never ship AI code untested.

My rules now

1. Use AI for the first version; review carefully before the second.
2. Keep apps small — one screen, one job.
3. You still must understand the code you ship.

The verdict

Vibe coding does not replace developers, exactly — it removes the grunt work developers hate. The skill that matters now is describing the problem precisely and reviewing what comes back. That skill is still called development. It just looks different.