When Andrej Karpathy coined the term "vibe coding," he described a workflow where he would "fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists." By 2025 and into 2026, the practice became far more disciplined — and this guide walks through the structured, four-stage workflow that makes AI-first development repeatable and production-ready.

Table of Contents

What Vibe Coding Actually Means in 2026

The Core Workflow: Prompt, Generate, Review, Refine

Stage 1: Prompt (Designing Your Intent)

Stage 2: Generate (AI Produces the First Draft)

Stage 3: Review (The Developer's Critical Eye)

Stage 4: Refine (Iterating with Precision)

Putting It All Together: A Complete Vibe Coding Session

The Vibe Coding Implementation Checklist

What's Next for AI-First Development

What Vibe Coding Actually Means in 2026

From Andrej Karpathy's Tweet to Engineering Methodology

When Andrej Karpathy coined the term "vibe coding" in a February 2023 post on X , he described a workflow where he…