Last week I vibe-coded a dark-mode toggle on rabinarayanpatra.com just because it felt right. No ticket, no plan—just me thinking, “Eh, this site needs a dark mode.” Thirty minutes later, it was live. It wasn’t polished, but it worked. And I liked it. It felt like sketching in code.
That, to me, is vibe coding.
It’s not some formal technique. You won’t find it in an engineering handbook. Vibe coding is when you're just building by feel. Not for a deadline. Not because of some stakeholder. You're just trying something out. Maybe you're exploring a new stack or randomly experimenting at midnight. No roadmap—just intuition.
And sometimes? It’s the best kind of dev work.
I’ve used vibe coding to prototype all sorts of stuff—especially on my personal site. One recent example: I added a “Listen to this blog” feature so visitors can hear posts read out loud. That wasn’t planned. I just thought it’d be cool. Started digging into text-to-speech options, wired it up in a quick session, and bam—it worked. A few tweaks later, it actually felt useful. But the first version? Total chaos under the hood.
Same with hackathons or when I’m exploring new frameworks. I’ve built entire layouts and animations in a single burst, just to see what happens. No pressure. No gatekeeping. Just momentum. That’s what makes vibe coding great—it gets you into flow. You’re not overthinking every line.
But vibe coding does have a dark side.
It’s easy to leave behind a mess. When I coded that “listen” feature, I hardcoded strings, ignored loading states, and mixed UI with logic. At first, it was fine. But later, I had to dig through that mess to add pause/resume and fix some edge cases. I’ve learned: what feels fast now often costs double later.
The worst part? It feels done, even when it’s not. That’s the trap.
So I’ve made peace with vibe coding by containing it. Here’s what I do now:
- I label it mentally as “just sketching”—so I don’t expect the first version to be clean.
- After I get something working, I slow down and review every line.
- I pull out all the hacks: replace temp variables, fix structure, add comments.
- I never merge vibe code straight into main. I refactor it, test it, and then treat it like “real” code.
When I built the dark mode toggle, it started as a simple boolean switch jammed into a layout file. But after the basic toggle worked, I paused. I pulled it into a proper theme context, added local storage syncing, handled system preferences—then shipped it. Vibe coding got it started, but cleanup made it production-ready.
So here’s my no-fluff reminder:
- Don’t skip tests—just write something, even one.
- Never commit unreviewed vibe code.
- Clean it like someone else will read it tomorrow—because future-you is someone else.
- Sketch fast, but polish slow.
At the end of the day, vibe coding is why I still love this job. It’s creative. It’s weird. It’s fun. Some of my best ideas have come from just messing around on my own site, like late-night tinkering on rabinarayanpatra.com. It’s like jazz—improv with a keyboard.
Anyway, I want to hear your story. What’s something you vibe-coded for fun? Got a weird little side feature, or a cool “just built it to see” moment? Share it—I’d love to see what you’re building when no one’s looking.
Let’s keep vibing.