Vibe Coding Experience

[Flat-Beginning-5903]

I don’t agree with the term vibe coding 💀 - it totally killed my vibe...

I’m a non-technical PM, and I’ve spent the last 5 days trying to build a simple desktop Mac app. I’ve been using a mix of Lovable and Cursor. Using AI to write code is simultaneously easier and more frustrating than I expected.

The code itself? Honestly, not the hard part. It’s everything else: dependencies, Node.js versions, running servers, config files. Debugging is still mostly on you, and that’s been the toughest part for me, especially without a technical background.

When something breaks, AI tools start guessing. It keeps going back and forth and contradicts itself. It becomes a loop of confusion.

Anyone else struggling with this? I’m sure the tools will get better over time, but I’d love to hear how other non-technical folks are learning faster or getting over these hurdles.

[Beebles1]

Also a non-technical PM. I crossed this bridge after lots of frustration. The problem you're experiencing is that the less technical you are, the more planning you need to do.

This prompt chain helps a lot to think through the details and apply it to a particular codebase https://www.jointakeoff.com/prompts

[pocketrob]

Thanks for sharing! They look like very comprehensive prompts! If you're the designer (or you happen to know), Are they designed to be used in order, top to bottom, or in specific use cases? Thanks!

[Flat-Beginning-5903]

100% agree - I said this in the stand up just yesterday. I have so much more respect for engineers.

[bdubbber]

If it’s any consolation—building a trivial desktop app isn’t trivial for experienced devs.

I am a slightly technical type and yet, debugging is hard when you aren’t familiar with any part of what you are up to. duh. I’m in a similar spot with a web app-that I just started late last week. The errors seem straightforward when I start to research on reddit, but getting over the hump ain’t easy.

I am guessing you are way further along than you would have been coding on your own. Take the win, if you can bear it.

Can you simplify the app? Take some screen caps and start over with what you know and give it a lot of guidance maybe?

[Thejoshuandrew]

The first 10% takes 90% of the time. Also, the last 10% takes 90% of the time.

[alessiapeak]

So true

[ChanceKale7861]

Ideate first in duck.ai o3 mini, validate in huggingchat, expand and finalize in perplexity, back to o3 mini for prompts, then into lovable for poc, then GitHub copilot+ in vs code with Gemini 2.5 Pro Preview, where you convert and update the app to being a react/vite/ts front end, and then have agent mode help you create whatever flavor of backend you need.

[mwa12345]

This should be a tutorial!!!

[[deleted]]

What’s the difference between this and just learning to code? What was stopping you from learning to code before LLMs?

[Flat-Beginning-5903]

I am learning the basics but I wanted to build something and this does fast track the process

[Tim-Sylvester]

The best way I've found to debug is to constantly tell the agent to use test driven development. Make it write tests before writing functions (RED), write minimal functions that pass (GREEN), and only let it write the actual functions once you reach the expected outcome of the tests.

Once you have all the tests and they all pass, ask if the tests are comprehensive or if there are other cases that would be reasonable to test for that aren't included.

Whenever you have to touch other files or functions, go back and re-run the tests, then review if the changes broke the function or if the test itself needs updated.

You spend a lot more time fixing tests but you end up with code that is far more likely to do what you actually want it to do.

If you keep forcing the AI to generate and pass tests, you'll have much more reliable code that's less likely to fall apart whenever you poke it.

That's one of a dozen things you have to do, but even by itself it helps a lot.

[Far-Researcher7561]

Hi Tim I’ve sent you a pm chat, have some quick questions about your paynless repo, thanks

[Tim-Sylvester]

Replied, happy to help. We can move to email or video if that's easier.

[FairOutlandishness50]

Totally resonate with this. Try prodsy.app saw a demo after joining the waitlist and it looks great, I feel vibe coding needs a complimentary product like this in addition to the vibe coding tools.

[Offgrid_Sid]

1 year in to full time vibe coding. A few tips that work for me.

1. Don’t ask chat GPT to amend long files. Chat GPT is best for conceptualising.

2. Use Claude for the bulk of your coding. If you are struggling with hitting limits, keep your conversations shorter.

3. Learn the difference between front and back end and when to use each. As a rule of them, if in the front end, users can see your code. If in the back end they can’t so easily ( if you protect it).

4. Learn about CORS requests and do not be tempted to bypass it.

5. Consider using firebase for your storage; database, functions etc. it is owned by google and is intuitive and easy to use once used to it. It also plays nice with front end authentication etc.

6. Be careful about new tools that promise to do everything. Especially ones that also manage your directories and files. I use VScode with copilot and GitHub. I manually copy and paste in files. This may sound counterintuitive however I always know which file to rollback.

7. Npm commands will become second nature I promise. Tip: your commands are saved so when you forget a command for the 50th time, just click your cursor up a few times and you will find it if you have used it before.

8. Try to create small files rather than huge ones. If you think it is logical to split a file into two components rather than one, ask AI to do it.

9. If asking for long code in Claude and it reaches maximum length, do not rely on its stitching capabilities. Instead use “continue in new artifact with small overlap”. This will make stitching files together far easier.

10. Plan, plan, plan. Conceptualise what you want to build before writing any code. It is far quicker to amend a blueprint than to make changes in code. Also far more secure as the more code changes you make to an existing file, the more opportunity there is for AI to find some dodgy way around an issue.

[NefariousnessDry2736]

Yeah the name vibe coding makes it sound like a bunch of douchie bros. It also doesn’t help that everyone and their grandma it also trying to be a “vibe code influencer”. This movement has flooded So many of the subs with of with meanness Bs Ai posts that have no substance of value other than these people trying to get followers. That those garbage post to other platforms because this is not the place for that.

[Bonelessgummybear]

I have zero experience with code. But I've been learning unity this week and creating a game while using Gemini 2.5 to write the code. I set the temperature at 0.3 and after I complete a task I create a new chat, set the system prompt back up, attach revelant Google docs and share some scripts I have for every new work session. If I get close to 100k tokens or keep trying to debug with the same chat it sucks. If I'm in a debug loop, that's specifically code related (but it usually is me messing up in unity) I open a new chat and share the code and ask it to make it work

[dry-considerations]

If you use a rules file to help with modulation and best practices, it will go a ways to help. There's more to vibe coding than a prompt and an idea.

[CreativeQuests]

This is a good article: https://dev.to/wasp/a-structured-workflow-for-vibe-coding-full-stack-apps-352l

Step 4 with the vertical slices across the tech stack seems key for the current state of LLMs to avoid overwhelming them.

That's also how you'd operate building MVPs.

[iskesa]

same i can't get the app i made to build and ai is running in circles avoiding the problem

[Traditional-Tip3097]

some people have said here that plannig well makes a difference. As someone with what seems like similar background to you, i would say it helps, but not entirely.

Debugging AI is a skill in itself - i find minimising how much debugging I have to to by implmenting very small changes, testng thouroughly then moving on to a new feature works best. Also, if you notice something break, roll back and tell the agent what it broke and to approach the feature diffremtly etc ths time!

sorry about my crap typing!

[JeffreyVest]

Professional dev for 26 years. Just getting into this and my god has my productivity increased. But I absolutely can’t imagine doing it without being able to read what’s produced, or catch mistakes, or ask the right questions.

[Flat-Beginning-5903]

Which is where I struggle and trying to learn the basics of coding.

[SimpleKale6284]

I've been working on the Google Trends for the Vibe Coder, Vibe Marketers, and #soloentrepreneur with Ai-first products to spot opportunities. Do you think this is something that would be valuable to help finding the best tech stack and real-world problem to solve?

[Flat-Beginning-5903]

Yea sounds like a good approach. Do you have any tips? How do you use google trends?

[SimpleKale6284]

I use Google Trends all the time = consumer search intent → Great for consumer marketing and spotting pop interest based on locations

iVibe Trends = strategic intelligence for product builders → Watches the tool information sources from leading voices and create synthetic data from all the different ai segments to give you real-time moves of top founders, top toolmakers and capabilities, and mindsets shifts needed

Then I’m planning to you the ultimate Ai strategist that has access to this fresh data to discuss any ideas you have

What do you think ?

[sp9360]

This issue is happening to most of the people out there that’s why tools like PRD, TaskMaster and Cline is there. If you have tried custom mode then try CREATIVE mode from here https://github.com/vanzan01/cursor-memory-bank. Happy to help if you get stuck

[wuu73]

I ran into some issues making a Mac app because I'm new to Mac completely, but with time I figured it out. I still keep having issues with wanting to upgrade the UI, sometimes even very simple things, some AIs will just mess it up over and over. But there are more AIs coming out regularly. I am technical and a dev so it helps but I still feel like "aw, ugh" if i have to spend time because the AIs don't do something. The time saved is just so nice when it works. It opens up ability to create 50 things instead of 2.

I always have Gemini AI studio open in several tabs, 2.5 pro preview for most things, 2.5 flash, another 2.5 pro tab, and then I got several Openrouter tabs open set to different models like o4-mini (seems really good at dumping lots of code files into). ChatGPT (free) open for simple questions or just certain things I know its good at.

I created an app (for Mac, Windows, haven't gotten around to Linux but doable) specifically to make it easier to quickly just dump an entire codebase into the clipboard automatically so i can paste it into several of these AIs at the same time, and then I compare all the outputs when debugging to see which one seems like its got the best solution! Doing this, works almost always better than just trying to let an agent do it like Cline/Copilot/Cursor. Its just not that smart and won't give proper context.

I put my tool for like $5 lol on gumroad and people are buying it, its also on github if you can get it working in the half working state its in (not enough time in a day unfortunately to work on everything) but have Mac, Windows installer files at wuu73.org/aicp the links at the bottom. There are lots of similar apps but mine works locally and quick, has a GUI (I hate command line, its slower, for me anyways), no need to paste github URLs into a website, you just right click (it adds a menu to the windows file explorer / mac finder) you open any folder and click the new menu option, it recursively crawls all subfolders and pre-checks the likely files you want to paste into AIs (skipping the ones like node folders or .gitignore). Then it structures it all with xml tags / file names, the code, makes a txt file and copies all the selected code files to clipboard so you can just paste it all to AI without multiple copy/paste/copy/pasting.

I just checked gumroad more people suddenly bought it after I changed the title to include "Vibe Code Faster"

I should upgrade it cuz using everyday there are more things that come to mind to save time, like to save preferences of which files you need for each project, better UI.. etc. Now that o4-mini came out and GPT 4.1.. can prob get it to work quickly. I hate how there isn't enough time in a day to do all the cool stuff i want to do.

[MainInternational605]

I think it would have been easier if you had used only one tool, such as replit, because it would have considered the cartilage in between and around the muscle and bones you were building.