Who coined the term vibe coding?

Andrej Karpathy, one of OpenAI's founding members, coined it in a post on X on February 2, 2025. Collins Dictionary made it its Word of the Year 2025.

Why is it called vibe coding?

Karpathy described it as fully giving in to the vibes and forgetting that the code even exists. You steer by how the result looks and works, and the AI handles the code.

Is Claude Code vibe coding?

Claude Code is an AI coding agent, so you can use it for vibe coding. Whether it counts depends on how you work: accepting what it writes without checking is vibe coding, while reviewing and testing it is AI-assisted development. I use Claude Code for almost everything I build.

Many vibe coding tools let you start free with limits. Building every day usually needs a paid plan, and I pay for two Claude Max plans at $200 a month.

Can you vibe code with ChatGPT?

Yes, ChatGPT can write code for you to paste into a project. For building in your own files, OpenAI's coding agent Codex does the work, the way Claude Code does.

Vibe coding is good for prototypes, internal tools and small products. It gets risky when customers, money or personal data are involved and nobody checks what the AI built. Test every build, keep secrets on the server, and review anything that touches payments or logins.

What is vibe coding? (And how it works)

Q: What is a vibe coder?

A vibe coder is someone who builds software by describing it to an AI instead of writing the code. Many vibe coders have never written code, and others are developers who use AI for the parts they'd rather not type.

Where the term came from, how it works, what I've built with it, and every tool worth knowing, from someone who doesn't write code.

by Navid Moazzez·Updated 2 Okt 2026·12 min read·

Vibe coding means building software by describing what you want to an AI, and letting it write the code.

I don't write code. And I've built over 450 free tools (and a few premium ones) this way, plus my own sites and the AI Operating System (AI OS) my business runs on.

Here's what that looks like, live from my GitHub and Claude Code:

Live tracker

Always building something

Even on the days I'm not technically working.

7,390 contributions on GitHub in the last year

So this guide comes from the builder's side, with real examples you can open.

In this guide, you'll learn:

What vibe coding is, and where the word comes from
Why it matters, and what it would cost without it
How it works, shown on a tool I built
Every vibe coding tool worth knowing
The best practices, the common mistakes, and your first 7 days

Most examples link to a tool you can open right now.

key_takeaways.md

TL;DR

Key takeaways

Vibe coding is building software by describing the result in plain English and letting an AI agent write, run and fix the code.

Andrej Karpathy named it on February 2, 2025, and Collins Dictionary made it its Word of the Year 2025.

It's fast for prototypes, internal tools and small products. Anything customers rely on needs testing and checks.

The main tools are AI agents like Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode, and browser builders like Lovable, Bolt, Replit and Emergent.

Professionals are moving to what Karpathy calls agentic engineering: the same speed, with more planning and checking.

What is vibe coding?

Vibe coding is building software by describing what you want in plain English, then letting an AI agent write, run and fix the code.

It has three parts:

You describe the result you want.
An AI agent writes the code and runs it.
You look at what came back, and say what to change.

For example, I asked Claude Code for a tool that builds tagged links and shows which Google Analytics (GA4) channel each link lands in. It wrote the tool and ran it, and I tested it.

You never type the code.

The AI handles the programming language, the files and the setup.

The term has two meanings today:

The strict meaning – you accept what the AI writes without reading the code, the way Andrej Karpathy first described it
The everyday meaning – any building where you describe the result to an AI in plain English, including people who test and check everything

Simon Willison, the co-creator of Django, draws the line between the two:

Simon Willison

@simonw

If an LLM wrote the code for you, and you then reviewed it, tested it thoroughly and made sure you could explain how it works to someone else that's not vibe coding, it's software development.

Most people who search for vibe coding mean the everyday meaning.

So that's what this guide covers.

What is a vibe coder?

A vibe coder is someone who builds software this way: they describe it, the AI writes it, and they judge the result.

Many vibe coders have never written a line of code.

I'm one of them:

Navid Moazzez

@thenavidm

You do not need to know how to code. You need to know how to set it up.

Others are developers who use AI for the parts they'd rather not type.

And when a creator does it to build the tools and systems behind their own business, I call that a vibe creator.

Who coined vibe coding, and why is it called that?

Andrej Karpathy, one of OpenAI's founding members, coined the term on February 2, 2025:

Andrej Karpathy

@karpathy

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.

So the "vibe" is the feel of it.

You steer by how the result looks and works, and you let the AI worry about the code underneath.

And the word spread fast:

February 2, 2025 – Karpathy names vibe coding in a post on X
March 5, 2025 – Y Combinator's Garry Tan says 25% of its Winter 2025 startups had codebases 95% written by AI
March 2025 – Merriam-Webster lists vibe coding as slang and trending
November 6, 2025 – Collins Dictionary names vibe coding its Word of the Year 2025
February 4, 2026 – Karpathy says professionals are moving to agentic engineering