What Is Vibe Coding? Complete Guide for 2026

Vibe coding is a software development approach where you describe what you want in natural language and AI writes the code for you. Instead of writing syntax, you write intentions.

Who Coined It?

The term was coined by Andrej Karpathy (former Tesla AI director, OpenAI founding member) in February 2025. He described it as "fully giving in to the vibes" — letting AI handle the implementation while you focus on the vision.

How It Works

1. You describe what you want to build in plain English
2. AI generates the code
3. You review and test the output
4. You iterate by describing changes
5. Ship it

What You Need

• An AI coding tool (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot)
• A clear idea of what you want to build
• Patience to iterate and refine
• Zero coding experience (seriously)

Real Example

SPUNK LLC built 220+ websites using vibe coding. Every line of code was written by Claude AI. The founder has no formal coding background. See the full breakdown.

Get Started

Read our step-by-step tutorial or grab the Vibe Coder's Playbook.