Vibe coding is a term coined by Andrej Karpathy in a widely shared post on February 2, 2025, describing “a new kind of coding” in which a developer “fully give[s] in to the vibes, embrace[s] exponentials, and forget[s] that the code even exists.” The idea is that AI coding tools have become good enough that a person can describe what they want in natural language, often by voice, accept the AI’s changes, and iterate on results without closely reading or fully understanding the generated code.
Karpathy framed it as being possible because models like the ones behind Cursor’s Composer had gotten very capable, and he later called the post a throwaway “shower of thoughts” tweet. Despite that, the phrase entered the tech vocabulary almost immediately and became shorthand for a fast, conversational, trust-the-model style of development, distinct from careful engineering where every line is reviewed.
Vibe coding crystallized an ongoing debate about how much humans should understand the software they ship. It works well for quick prototypes and throwaway tools but raises real concerns about correctness, security, and maintainability when applied to production systems. For businesses it captures both the promise of dramatically faster building and the risk of shipping code that no one on the team actually understands.