How to get started with vibe coding

Why is vibe coding on the rise?

To translate abstract ideas into tangible results, business teams today must be able to communicate their vision clearly to software developers and IT teams. Vibe coding helps by giving non-technical project managers and team members the technical vocabulary they need to turn vague concepts into concrete capabilities.

That’s why vibe coding is becoming so popular: It democratizes software creation and makes it more efficient. By giving even non-developers the power to explore the possibilities that exist in planned and prospective applications, it drives faster innovation cycles and more cost-effective prototyping.

Managers who are leading technical initiatives are especially fond of vibe coding. Using prompts in large language models (LLMs) and directly creating working prototypes allows them to streamline tedious software development. Instead of inundating their IT partners with vague requests — for example, “Can you make this better?” — managers who lack deep coding knowledge can use vibe coding to create rough working prototypes that demonstrate their vision. The result is smoother collaboration between business leaders and the IT practitioners who support them, which can help accelerate go-to-market strategies.

How to start vibe coding: What are the first steps?

If you want to learn how to vibe code, here are a few tips to help you get started:

1. Identify projects that are good candidates

Consider what projects might be best suited for vibe coding. Programming tasks that involve creating a prototype to explore and communicate ideas are typically a good fit.

Here are a few examples of projects that are especially good candidates for vibe coding:

• You are a product manager and you visualize a new, more user-friendly screen in your ordering system to engage customers. With vibe coding, you can describe the screen contents to an LLM and ask it to generate the necessary code.
• You have an idea for a workflow that would speed up a slow approval process and improve business Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Vibe coding allows you to describe this workflow to an LLM, which can then generate a user interface for requesting, forwarding, and signing the needed approvals.
• You’re a customer support manager who would like customer service agents to triage problems more quickly. You visualize a software application that they could use to recognize five types of common problems and suggest fixes for them. Using vibe coding, you can describe this application to an LLM that will subsequently generate it for you.

Anyone who wants to learn vibe coding should understand not only when they should use vibe coding, but also when they shouldn’t. So, when is vibe coding not the right approach? Vibe coding generates just one route to a prototype and working code, and that route might not be the most efficient one. In fact, you will likely struggle if you use vibe-coded code as the basis for scaling operations. For now, even if you test and debug your generated code, vibe coding best practices demand that you use vibe coding only when and where business stakes are low. But in the future, there will likely be more vibe-coded apps in production.

2. Translate business requirements into prompts

Prompts are the instructions you type in an LLM chat bar to get the output you want. The more specific the instructions, the better the output. Instead of vague directions — for example, “Make a webpage” — describe the buttons you want the page to have and what kind of design or colors you would prefer. Include specific information like the personas of the end user and implicit implementation requirements. An example of the latter, for example, might be, “Use the React framework to write the code; don’t just use JavaScript.”

Also include instructions for constraints. For example, “Make sure the same code runs without change on mobile and desktop browsers.”

If you need help crafting a prompt, you can use an LLM for that task as well. You can even have the LLM ask you questions so you can provide guidance as it generates the code. This approach allows users without coding experience to communicate in natural language and ultimately produce the app they want.

Here’s an example prompt from the vibe coding application Lovable:

I need a **task management** application with:
- **Tech Stack:** Next.js frontend, Tailwind CSS for styling, Supabase for auth and database.
- **Core Features:** Project and task creation, assigning tasks to users, due date reminders, and a dashboard overview.

Start by building the **main dashboard page**, containing:
- A header with navigation,
- A list of projects with their status,
- and a button to create a new project.

While you might still need some rudimentary coding knowledge to get started — for example, understanding that CSS is for layouts — you’ll learn quickly if you practice using the LLM and matching prompts against output.

3. Iterate quickly and often

Typically you would review LLM-generated code to ensure it makes sense, and then run it in sandboxed environments so you don’t expose vulnerabilities to larger sections of valuable code. But you can make an exception here. Because vibe coding is meant to quickly generate a working demonstration, avoid becoming bogged down trying to find errors and debugging code yourself. If the code doesn’t work, just state your requirements again differently and have the LLM generate new code instead.

Rely on the LLM and agent workflows to automatically generate and verify the entire application. (Novice users can often find answers to coding problems through popular forums like Stack Overflow.) As soon as you have something that works, share the prototype with experienced developers and incorporate feedback into the working document.

What are vibe coding’s biggest pitfalls — and potential solutions?

Because AI has its limitations, you should be aware of this method’s potential perils. Here are a few of the most dangerous:

1. Security challenges

If no trained developer inspects the code or tries testing it, software generated from a vibe coding exercise might contain security vulnerabilities. Putting this code in production risks facilitating cybersecurity breaches and exposing sensitive data. Containers are a potential solution for security concerns because they enable users to run code in a secure sandboxed environment.

2. Repeated erroneous code

If you are not an expert programmer, you might get stuck in the iteration process, where the LLM delivers erroneous code even after you ask it to correct problems. If you no longer have a working version of the code saved, you might need help from a programmer. While this defeats the purpose of vibe coding, a little handholding can go a long way in such cases.

3. The “Dory” syndrome

In the animated film Finding Nemo, the fish named Dory has a sort of amnesia: She has difficulty remembering recent events and conversations, and often needs information to be repeated.

Similarly, LLMs have a limited context window. After a few iterations of generating code with new prompts, the LLM will forget the goal of the exercise and start drifting toward just satisfying the latest prompt. This is a problem because the net code misses the larger context of the vibe coding project. One way to avoid this might be to reiterate the project goals or to remind the LLM to build upon what you have already entered throughout your session.

4. Losing track

You might lose track of your changes. To avoid this problem, learn to use the source version control system.

Vibe coding 101: What else do you need to know?

Vibe coding enables broader participation in the software development process and facilitates cross-collaboration between teams. As a result, it compresses the design-development process and delivers more cost-effective prototyping.

Despite the potential advantages of vibe coding, teams should proceed with caution and start small. Keep an eye out for pitfalls like security challenges and avoid deploying untested code into existing viable code bases.

If you keep these tips and tools at the ready — and if you use them correctly and responsibly, with your eyes open to potential issues — vibe coding can make software development more democratic, more collaborative, and more efficient. That, in turn, can help you quickly bring to life new ideas that help you outperform competitors and grow your business.

How can Cloudflare help?

If you want to learn how to vibe code, solutions from Cloudflare can help you get started. One way to learn vibe coding and experiment with it, for example, is to load up Meta’s Llama LLM on Workers AI.

Cloudflare also addresses security challenges via containers. If you plan to use AI-generated code from vibe coding — which is inherently untrusted — it’s a good idea to run it in Cloudflare’s secure, container-based environment.

Cloudflare’s open-source VibeSDK sets up everything you need to run your own AI-powered development platform:

• Integration with LLM models to generate code, build applications, debug errors, and iterate in real time
• Isolated development environments that allow users to safely build and preview their applications in secure sandboxes
• Infinite scale that allows you to deploy thousands or even millions of applications, all served on Cloudflare’s global network
• Observability and caching across multiple AI providers, giving you insight into costs and performance with built-in caching for popular responses
• Project templates that LLMs can use as a starting point to build common applications and speed up development
• One-click project export to the user’s Cloudflare account or GitHub repository so users can take their code and continue development on their own

To learn more about creating deployable applications through vibe coding, view our guide to building AI agents on Cloudflare, which includes LLM resources to help you get started with vibe coding. And explore the Cloudflare demo platform that you can use to create and deploy applications.

 

FAQs

What is vibe coding?

Vibe coding is a method for both programmers and non-programmers to use large language models (LLMs) to quickly generate functional prototypes.

What are the main benefits of vibe coding?

Vibe coding can democratize software creation and accelerate innovation cycles, allowing people who are not programmers to quickly generate prototypes. It is also particularly useful for managers who lead technical initiatives.

What are the first steps to start vibe coding?

To begin, identify a suitable project, translate business requirements into specific prompts for the LLMs, and iterate quickly on the generated code.

What are some potential pitfalls of vibe coding?

Potential issues include security vulnerabilities, LLMs repeating erroneous code, LLMs losing context, and losing track of changes to the code.

How can Cloudflare assist with the vibe coding process?

Cloudflare offers Workers AI to run LLMs and provides a secure, container-based environment to run untrusted, AI-generated code. Cloudflare’s open-source VibeSDK coding platform also offers tools for code generation, debugging, isolated environments, and scalability.

How can users mitigate the risks associated with vibe coding?

To handle potential risks, use containers for security, ask a programmer for help when needed, reiterate project goals to the LLM, and utilize a source version control system.