What Counts as Vibe Coding? A Practical Checklist for Teams

What if you could build a working app by just talking to your computer? No typing functions. No staring at syntax errors. No debugging stack traces. Just describe what you want, hit enter, and watch it happen. That’s vibe coding-and it’s not science fiction anymore. Since Andrej Karpathy coined the term in February 2025, teams across startups and indie projects have started using it to cut development time in half. But not everyone is doing it right. And if you’re calling your AI-assisted coding ‘vibe coding’ without following the rules, you’re not saving time-you’re building a ticking time bomb.

What Exactly Is Vibe Coding?

Vibe coding isn’t just using ChatGPT to write code. It’s not even AI pair programming, where you tweak the suggestions. True vibe coding means you never look at the code. Not once. You don’t read it. You don’t edit it. You don’t fix a typo. You don’t refactor a loop. You give a natural language prompt-like ‘Build a login page with email verification and password reset’-and you trust the AI to deliver. Then you test it. If it works, you ship it. If it breaks, you ask the AI to fix it. Again, without touching the code.

This is a radical shift. Traditional development spends 62% of time on syntax, frameworks, and debugging. Vibe coding flips that: 87% of effort goes into crafting the right prompt. The code becomes a black box. Your job isn’t to understand how it works-it’s to make sure it does what you asked.

The Five Rules of Authentic Vibe Coding

If your team says they’re vibe coding, ask: Are they following the real rules? Here’s the checklist that separates real vibe coding from wishful thinking.

1. Zero manual code editing-Every line of code must come from the AI. No copy-pasting. No tweaking. Cursor IDE logs must show 0% human edits. If you changed a variable name, you’re not vibe coding-you’re just using AI as a faster autocomplete.
2. No code review-You don’t open the file. You don’t scan for security flaws. You don’t check for code smells. SonarQube metrics must show zero manual review time. This is the hardest rule to follow. Humans are wired to fix things. But in vibe coding, you let the tools handle it.
3. Validation through execution only-Your only judge is the test suite. Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or any CI pipeline must run 100% automated tests. If the app crashes on login? That’s your feedback. Not a code review. Not a linter warning. Just the result.
4. Changes come only from AI refinement-If something breaks, you don’t fix it. You ask the AI to fix it. ‘The login fails after three attempts. Fix it.’ The AI generates a new version. You run tests again. That’s the only way changes enter the codebase. GitHub commit history should show only AI-generated diffs.
5. You use vibe-optimized tools-You can’t vibe code with VS Code and Copilot alone. You need tools built for this. Cursor v2.5+ with ‘Vibe Mode’ enabled. Windsurf. Or GPT-4 Turbo integrated into an IDE that tracks prompt history and blocks manual edits. These tools log your workflow and enforce the rules.

Teams that meet all five criteria see real results. One startup in Austin built a full SaaS MVP in 36 hours-no developer on the team had written code before. Another team at a fintech startup reduced prototype time from two weeks to two days. But here’s the catch: they all had one thing in common. They didn’t skip the testing.

Why Testing Isn’t Optional-It’s the New Code Review

If you’re not reading the code, how do you know it’s safe? The answer: automated testing and security scanning. SonarSource found that unverified AI-generated code has a 43% higher chance of containing critical security flaws. That’s not a risk you can ignore.

Teams doing vibe coding right use tools like:

• SonarQube v10.4+-It now has a ‘Vibe Coding Verification’ mode that scans AI-generated code for vulnerabilities without human input.
• GitHub Copilot with Vibe Mode-Tracks your ‘code inspection avoidance score’ and flags teams that start editing.
• OWASP ZAP + automated penetration tests-Run these on every build. If the AI generates a login system with hardcoded passwords? The test catches it before you ship.

One team at a healthcare startup tried vibe coding for a patient portal. They skipped automated security scans. Two weeks after launch, their database was breached. The AI had generated a vulnerable SQL query. They never saw it. The tests didn’t catch it because they weren’t running them. That’s not vibe coding-it’s negligence.

Who Should Use Vibe Coding?

Not everyone should use it. And not every project should be built this way.

Perfect for:

• Non-developers building MVPs-Product managers, designers, marketers. 68% of non-technical founders in Y Combinator’s 2025 survey built working apps using vibe coding.
• Prototyping and experiments-Testing a business idea? Build it fast. If it fails, trash it. No regrets.
• Internal tools-Dashboards, data importers, automation scripts. If it’s not customer-facing, vibe coding saves hours.

Avoid for:

• Critical systems-Encryption, payment processing, healthcare algorithms. Stanford’s AI Ethics Lab found vibe coding fails 78% of the time on cryptographic code. That’s not a bug. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.
• Long-term, scalable apps-Vibe coding creates 37% more technical debt, according to CodeClimate. It’s great for speed, terrible for maintainability.
• Teams without testing discipline-If you don’t have automated tests, vibe coding is a recipe for chaos.

Most high-performing teams now use a hybrid model. They vibe code the prototype. Then they hand it off to a traditional dev team for review, refactoring, and hardening. That’s the smart path. Vibe coding isn’t the end of programming. It’s a powerful first draft tool.

What Happens When You Get It Wrong?

Reddit user ‘CodeWithVibes’ built an e-commerce site in three days using vibe coding. ‘It worked,’ they wrote. ‘Then SonarQube found 14 critical vulnerabilities. Took me two weeks to fix.’ That’s the story of most teams who skip the rules.

Another team at a startup thought they were vibe coding. They used GPT-4, didn’t edit code, but still opened files to ‘check if it looked right.’ They called it vibe coding. But their logs showed 12% manual edits. Their CI pipeline ran tests, but only 60% of them. They shipped. The app crashed under load. Their CEO asked, ‘Why did we pay for AI if it still broke?’

Real vibe coding isn’t magic. It’s discipline. It’s trusting the process. It’s accepting that you won’t understand the code-and that’s okay, as long as the tests say it works.

How to Start Vibe Coding (Without Losing Your Mind)

Here’s how your team can start-safely.

1. Choose one small project. Not your main app. Something disposable-like a CSV importer or a Slack bot.
2. Install Cursor v2.5+ and enable Vibe Mode. Turn off all manual editing shortcuts.
3. Write your first prompt: ‘Create a script that reads a CSV file and sends an email summary to [email protected].’
4. Run the code. If it works? Celebrate. If it fails? Ask the AI to fix it. Don’t touch the file.
5. Set up automated tests. Use Jest or PyTest. Make sure every function has at least one test.
6. Integrate SonarQube. Run it on every commit.
7. After three days, ask: Did you touch the code? Did you read it? If the answer is yes, you didn’t vibe code. You just used AI as a crutch.

Replit’s 2026 study found teams with a dedicated ‘prompt engineer’-someone who specializes in writing clear, outcome-focused prompts-got 47% better results. That’s not a luxury. It’s a requirement.

The Future of Vibe Coding

The AI coding market hit $3.8 billion by the end of 2025. Vibe coding drove 67% of that growth. But the trend is shifting. The Pragmatic Engineer’s January 2026 study found 87% of top-performing teams now use a hybrid approach: vibe coding for prototyping, traditional code review for production.

IBM just announced a ‘vibe coding framework for cloud infrastructure’ that cuts Terraform setup time by 61%. GitHub is rolling out ‘Vibe Mode’ for Copilot. Even the EU’s new AI Act is starting to regulate it-requiring human oversight for critical systems.

But the biggest warning comes from the Association for Computing Machinery: uncritical use of vibe coding could erode programming skills across the industry. Junior devs who only use AI tools are 29% worse at manual debugging.

So here’s the truth: vibe coding isn’t about replacing developers. It’s about changing what developers do. The future isn’t coding. It’s directing. It’s asking the right questions. It’s trusting the machine-but never forgetting to test it.