Andrej Karpathy’s Guide to Vibe Coding

I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works.

On February 2, 2025, Andrej Karpathy—former Director of AI at Tesla, founding member of OpenAI, and one of the most influential minds in modern machine learning tweeted a spontaneous but game-changing observation. In that tweet, he gave a name to a growing shift in how coding is being done in the age of powerful AI tools:

Vibe Coding

This wasn’t just a quip it was a declaration of a new coding philosophy, one where intuition, minimal effort, and conversational AI replace traditional structure and discipline.

Here’s the text of the tweet that launched the Vibe Coding movement:

Thus was born Vibe Coding—a laid-back, AI-driven, keyboard-optional way to build software that leans more on vibes than on syntax. Below is a practical breakdown of Karpathy’s approach.

1. Surrender to the Vibes
   Don’t overthink. Let intuition guide your coding process instead of strict logic or structure.

2. Use Powerful LLM Tools
   Rely heavily on advanced AI tools like Cursor Composer with Sonnet or SuperWhisper. They're good enough now that you barely need to code manually.

3. Talk Instead of Type
   Speak your requests (e.g. “cut sidebar padding in half”) instead of finding and editing code directly. Let the AI handle the grunt work.

4. Accept Everything Blindly
   Always click “Accept All.” Don’t read the diffs. Trust the AI to make the right changes, even if you don’t fully follow them.

5. Handle Errors Lazily
   Just copy and paste error messages into the AI with no explanation. Let it figure out and fix the problem for you.

6. Let the Code Get Weird
   Don’t try to understand every line. The code may grow beyond your comprehension—and that’s fine.

7. Work Around Bugs, Not Through Them
   If the AI can’t fix a bug, don’t fight it. Try unrelated changes or alternate approaches until the issue disappears.

8. Focus on Output, Not Elegance
   The goal is a working app or feature, not clean or elegant code. It’s okay if things are held together with duct tape.

The future of developing app’s is suddenly open to each of us. How exciting is that!