What Is Vibe Coding? A Developer's Guide (2026)

I've been vibe coding for the past year — building a full SaaS product almost entirely through AI conversation. Some of it has been shockingly productive. Some of it has been a mess. This post is everything I wish I'd known when I started. Vibe coding is the practice of building software by describing what you want in natural language and letting AI write the code. Instead of typing syntax line by line, you have a conversation with an AI tool — and it generates working code based on your intent.