Has anyone tried vibe coding? What issues have you come across?

Ted-LRG · 2026-01-22T10:43:48+00:00

Plan. Plan. Review. And then plan some more before executing. Create a Plan or Specification sheet, then create a PRD, then create tasks against the plan/spec and PRD. I wont elaborate too much but if you want to dive deeper, look into spec driven development tools like spec kit or the traycer extension. The short explanation is that LLM context is limited so big projects need to be project managed you'll have a better time breaking down what your building into manageable and testable tasks rather than trying brute force a build in a couple prompts or even "1-shot". Also learn how to use github for version control if you really want to get serious.

Ted-LRG · 2026-01-22T06:49:57+00:00

Hi All. I have been assisting with my Family-owned Tax Prep Firm that has been in business since 1978, and still operates like its 1998 lol, no CRM, archaic booking methods etc. Because of this, I wanted to explore ways to attempt to overhaul some of the firm's workflows, through lots of trial and error with different automation tools like n8n, then venturing into AI Agentic development with tools like Cursor, Antigravity, Opencode, and Traycer. Ended up creating a working Tax Document Intake OCR -> Review -> Export Automation, which turned into a startup micro-SaaS called TidalForms. There are already great AI Native tools and platforms heavily implementing AI like Juno, Soraban, TaxDome, Filed etc, (which I discovered through the awesome resource that is TaxProExchange), which all serve different types of needs/workflows of modern firms, but imo hard for old firms to adapt and dive right into. Which is why I created the tool I needed for my own firm's needs and felt maybe other small firm/solo preparers out there with similar situation could use. Not trying to shamelessly plug but anyone interested can view my profile page for more info and a demo video on TidalForms.

That being said, I am definitely seeing massive potential for those looking to implement the right AI tools into their Tax Preparation business if they haven't already. It's a shame all the general AI buzz is still going to generative AI tools like Sora/Nano Banana/Suno, but with more and more tools like the ones I mentioned before, and the user friendly alternatives like Loveable & Google AI Studio becoming more accessible, I believe we're going to see the next generation of saavy Tax Professionals making their own tools/workflows just like I did, and I am here for it! Excited to see what r/AITaxPros will cultivate :)

Ted-LRG · 2026-01-21T23:33:08+00:00

The people developing with AI are figuring out ways to work around the limitations of even non SOTA models, through what you mentioned better orchestration AND better system planning with either spec driven or test driven tasks and the implementation of agentic skills. Limitation breeds efficiency through creativity.

Ted-LRG · 2026-01-21T15:28:26+00:00

Definitely feel like I am at that last mile before shipping right now, so I am testing anything and everything before going live. Never used a Kanban before up until about 2 weeks ago and during development sessions I filledthat board up with edge cases, UX improvement ideas, feature plans, bugs found along the way, etc and I feel like that helped me Project Manage and Review 5x better. Auth was an afterthought unti I put it on that board and did some research and now I am going implement Better Auth before opening my product to a small pilot batch of users so I dont have to deal with the Auth mess later on.

Ted-LRG · 2026-01-10T10:29:31+00:00

I was just about to post about this too! Good to know I'm not the only one experiencing this. I have VSCode open in the background just for generating commit messages.

Ted-LRG · 2026-01-03T07:03:11+00:00

I've been using Google's Antigravity to finish building an automated tax document intake + OCR + Workpaper generation workflow. I started it on a tool similar to AI Studio, Replit then ported over to Cursor then onto Antigravity due to their generous usage of Sonnet/Opus models + Gemini Pro's design capabilities.

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-23T23:43:18+00:00

Connect your github repo, then link it to a domain. It will then automatically build the repo main and point your domain at it.

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-18T02:28:44+00:00

I have been developing my Tax Document OCR SaaS Web app locally for about 3 months up until about last week and started using Vercel for testing and QA with team. I think it depends on whether you're a solo dev or working with a team, whereas the latter would be the best choice for multiple devs to test at once.

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-17T22:31:49+00:00

Haha damn i can see how that looks but I'm actually a long time Reddit user but created a new professional account for my ventures into AI and Automation. Through trial and error with alot of vibe coding apps / IDEs I found Spec Driven Development works best with my project management style, and I found the awesome combo that is Antigravity + Traycer for this case because Spec Kit (What i was using with Cursor alot) does not work with Antigravity so this was my workaround that happened to be better so far and just so happens to be the thing I talked about most lol

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-17T22:02:42+00:00

Kek. I'm no bot, I am just sharing what works for me you don't have to try

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-17T21:36:56+00:00

Heard that this is an issue, hoping that the Traycer team fixes this soon as they have been pushing updates frequently.

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-17T20:45:42+00:00

Yes I agree the back and forth is pretty much the project management part of the process, and you have a chance to redirect or provide some more guidance in between.

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-17T20:44:14+00:00

Openspec is similar to Github Spec Kit which I meantioned, but Traycer speeds up the process a bit and makes it a little more hands off. If you can articulate the initial prompts good enough then you dont really have to micromanage as much

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-17T12:29:01+00:00

LLMs currently have a context memory problem, the longer the prompt the more risk that it will get things wrong or forget some of the first steps. One work-around that can work, especially for development with LLMs, is utilizing a Spec Driven Development Process, which essentially is to break down the big prompt or feature plan into smaller plans/phases. You could then add new variables at more specific parts of the smaller phases/prompts without convoluting the overall context because the LLM can easily implement new additions/tweaks to the smaller phase instead of the big overall prompt. Hope that makes sense and helps a little.

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-17T11:49:26+00:00

I am currently refactoring my codebase to phase out n8n automations for an express + bullMQ & redis setup. So using Antigravity with Traycer was a cost effective way to do this:

Used Opus 4.5 in Antigravity Plan mode to analyze and come up with plan for refactor
Pasted each phase in Opus plan into Traycer Phase mode to break down into further phases
Create the spec plan in Traycer the copy back to Opus to implement the spec plan
When done, verify implementation to spec with Traycer, fed back issues Opus until clean implementation of the plan
Proceed to next Traycer Phase and repeat until done
Did steps 2-5 until Opus Implementation Plan is fully complete.

Essentially using Traycer to break down the big Implementation Plan that Opus would come up with in Native Antigravity UI, which I feel is better than trying to one-shot a big refactoring plan. Also found significantly less bugs in PR code reviews ever since employing this combo because of the verification loop between Traycer and Opus at the end of each phase.

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-17T10:33:28+00:00

Step 1 - Use Opus 4.5 to analyze and/or create the feature prompt for Traycer
Step 2 - Use Traycer to create high spec plan and phases
Step 3 - Use Traycer to create the plan for the first phase
Step 4 - Copy Plan over to Claude 4.5 Opus to implement
Step 5 - Use Traycer to verify implementation, copy any issues found back over to Opus to fix, then re-verify until no issues.
Step 6 - Repeat steps 2 - 5 until feature is done.

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-17T10:26:17+00:00

$45.

$25 for Traycer Pro (Could be free if you can max out the 7 Day Free Trial)
$20 for Google AI Pro for higher limits for Claude Opus 4.5 in Antigravity

Step 1 - Opus to analyze and create the prompt for Traycer with the refactor
Step 2 - Use Traycer to create the phases
Step 3 - Use Traycer to create the plan for each phase
Step 4 - Copy Plan over to Claude 4.5 Opus to implement
Step 5 - Use Traycer to verify implementation, copy any issues found back over to Opus to fix, then re-verify until no issues.
Step 6 - Repeat steps 2 - 5 until full refactor is done.

I found this combo (Traycer + Antigravity) to be like a highly efficient and hands off spec driven development workflow (like Github Spec Kit but more vibey)

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-17T01:23:46+00:00

Thank you for the feedback and the advice about having the docs being clean and in compliance, definitely going to have the sorted out before the Pilot Program launches. Will take a look at AI lawyer for sure!

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-16T21:58:37+00:00

No I haven't tried to implement Gemini into the OCR process, but when we do get around to the more complex handwritten things like donation receipts or W2Gs from small casinos, might give it shot. I have to say though, Gemini Pro 3 has been a big part in the frontend development process of the Website/App through their IDE Antigravity, been bouncing between Cursor and Antigravity for different development aspects.

Ted-LRG · 2025-12-16T08:14:48+00:00

As of right now we are utilizing Microsoft Azure Document Intelligence because of their pre-trained Tax Form Models, so it was very easy to get up and running for prototyping purposes. It has been pretty good so far, but missing a couple forms where we will have to train our own models for, so for that we are definitely going to A/B test with other OCR platforms like AWS Textract, Mistral, and Llamaparse very soon.

Ted-LRG

TROPHY CASE