Vibe Coding – Building an App by Chatting with AI

What Is Vibe Coding?

If you’ve been asking yourself what Vibe Coding actually is, it’s a new approach in which we leverage the capabilities of LLMs to develop applications and websites using natural language. You no longer need to know how to code in order to build applications – Vibe Coding means building an app by simply having a conversation with AI. We just describe what we want to create – say, a task management app – and the AI writes the code for us. Instead of writing code, we simply “go with the vibe”: rather than speaking in a programming language, we explain what we want to AI in plain language, receive a result, request changes, and keep iterating until we’re happy with the outcome.

The term was coined by Andrej Karpathy, one of the co-founders of OpenAI, who described it like this 👇

“I just see things, say things, run things, and it mostly works”

The revolution began in February 2025, when Karpathy introduced the concept of Vibe Coding. He demonstrated how entire applications could be built using only voice instructions, with AI writing the actual code. Since then, the term Vibe Coding has gone viral.

⚠️ By the way, if you want to learn how to streamline your workflow with artificial intelligence, I invite you to read the post Working Smarter with AI – Prompt Management Tools.

Naturally, I couldn’t resist trying it myself – I used Vibe Coding to build an explanatory website on the topic, covering the workflow, a comparison between traditional coding and Vibe Coding, pros and cons, and thoughts on where it’s all heading.

Visit the site 🦾

A Complete Guide to Getting Started Building Apps

📌 Step One – Defining the Project

Start by creating a kind of specification document. You can – and should – use GPT or any other tool to write a structured requirements document. The more attention you give to this stage, the less back-and-forth you’ll have when building the app. Here are a few key points to cover:

What problem are we trying to solve?
Who is the app intended for?
What is the core action the app needs to perform?
Interface and design guidelines

Here is a sample prompt I used to create a productivity-boosting task management app:

I want to develop a task management and productivity improvement app. I want to create an app that will help me and my team successfully complete tasks and advance projects, boost productivity, and assist with planning, focus, and concentration. I will provide you with a specification and you will help me build it.

The app is intended for freelancers and employees in organizations.

The app should allow users to enter tasks and build a work plan based on research-backed methods for improving productivity, prioritizing tasks, and reducing distractions.

The app should be mobile-friendly, with a modern yet minimalist design that won’t distract users, and it should incorporate reward and recognition mechanisms for achieving goals and meeting targets.

🧩 Step Two – Detailed Description of Functionality

The user will be able to enter tasks or upload a task file
For each task, the user will be able to set a due date
Tasks will be prioritized according to research-backed task prioritization methods
The app will generate daily to-do lists
At the start of each task, a timer based on the Pomodoro technique will activate
The app will put all notifications into “Do Not Disturb” mode during task execution
An analytics area for analyzing time spent on each task and insights for improving productivity
An option to send reminder emails
The system will generate a PDF with a weekly summary

It looks roughly like this:

## Initial Specification for a Task Management App ### 1. Home Screen

**Daily Task List**: A home screen displaying daily tasks and their priorities, with the option to filter by category (work, personal, projects) or urgency.
**Weekly Goals Dashboard**: An area that shows all weekly tasks and provides updates on open projects or targets to complete. ### 2. GTD Method – Task Management and Reminders
**Task Capture**: The ability to log new tasks or ideas of any kind on a capture screen. Tasks can be entered in general terms without yet deciding on a project or priority.
**Task Processing**: A separate screen for processing tasks – every newly logged task appears here until it is assigned to a project or given a category.
**Task Organization**: The ability to categorize and tag each task by project or topic, including setting deadlines and marking importance.
**Periodic Review**: A screen showing a weekly and monthly summary of task progress, to improve performance tracking over time. ### 3. Pomodoro – Scheduling and Focused Work Blocks
**Pomodoro Timer**: The option to start a timer that counts 25 minutes of work followed by a 5-minute break, including the ability to configure longer breaks after a set number of Pomodoros.
**Pomodoro Tracking**: A graphical history showing how many Pomodoro rounds were completed per project each day, enabling better focus on critical projects. ### 4. Prioritization and the Pareto Principle
**Urgency–Importance Matrix**: A tool for sorting tasks by urgency and importance, so the user can identify the critical tasks that drive meaningful results.
**Key Task Identification Using the 80/20 Rule**: A dashboard that highlights the tasks yielding the most significant results and recommends starting with those. ### 5. Reducing Distractions
**Focus Mode**: Activating a “Do Not Disturb” (Focus Mode) that blocks messages, updates, and notifications from the device.
**Email and Notification Time Management**: The option to set designated times for checking email and other notifications throughout the day. ### 6. Break Management
**Planned Break Mechanism**: A system that automatically suggests light breaks between long work blocks.
**Active Break Reminders**: The option to receive reminders to refresh with light physical activity or breathing exercises. ### 7. Reports and Statistics
**Periodic Reports**: A graphical reporting system showing weekly and monthly progress by project, including Pomodoro logs and completion of key tasks.
**Personal Statistics**: A personal analysis of time dedicated to projects and tasks by category, task type, and achievement of weekly goals.

### Additional Features

**Calendar Integration**: The option to sync with Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook.
**Automatic Task Suggestions**: Use of an AI model that can suggest automatic prioritization based on the user’s work habits.

💬 Step Three – Choose Your Tool and Start Explaining Your Vision to the AI

“I want to develop a task management and productivity improvement app. It’s important to me that the app helps me and my team successfully complete tasks and advance projects, boost productivity, and assist with planning, focus, and concentration. I will provide you with a specification and you will help me build it…”

🔁 Step Four – Iterative Conversation

The model creates a project folder and begins writing initial code (in some tools, it even suggests additional features you may not have thought of).
Once you receive the result, you can start making changes such as: “Add a filter by task category”, “Make adjustments to make the app responsive”.

Now that you’re happy with the result, you can share the app you’ve built with friends and colleagues and collect their feedback.
You can also connect the app to additional services such as user authentication, a database connection, or export the code and create a project on GitHub.

Ideas for What to Build with Vibe Coding 💡

Build landing pages in minutes
Create a task management app
Write automation scripts that cut down your routine processes
Develop an MVP without relying on an external development team
Organize data in Excel and build custom dashboards for data visualization

No-Code Development Tool Comparison

Tool	Description	Features	Audience	Rating
Lovable	An AI-powered platform that converts natural language into full web applications.	✔️ Full app generation – UI, backend, authentication, payments ✔️ Figma import – uses React, Tailwind, Vite ✔️ Integration with OpenAI and Anthropic models	Non-technical entrepreneurs, solo founders	User-friendly ★★★★☆
Base44	A conversational app builder for creating MVPs and custom tools.	✔️ Drag-and-drop interface – app templates – rapid prototyping ✔️ Build apps through AI conversation	Entrepreneurs, startups	User-friendly ★★★★☆
Replit	A cloud development environment with an AI agent for building and deploying applications.	✔️ Multi-language support ✔️ Deployments Collaboration tools ✔️ Replit Agent builds apps from natural language instructions	Developers, educators, hobbyists	User-friendly ★★★★★
Cursor	An AI-enhanced code editor for developers.	✔️ VS Code-like interface ✔️ Extensions such as autocomplete and more ✔️ Support for multiple models ✔️ AI agent-assisted coding	Developers, technical users	Requires technical knowledge ★★★☆☆
PartyRock	A no-code platform from AWS for generative AI applications.	✔️ Widget-based interface ✔️ No AWS account required ✔️ Powered by Amazon Bedrock ✔️ Generative AI capabilities	Beginners, small businesses	User-friendly ★★★★☆
Bolt	An AI-powered tool for building full web and mobile applications.	✔️ App generation from natural language instructions ✔️ Figma and Expo integration ✔️ AI agent-generated code ✔️ Full deployment	Developers, startups	User-friendly ★★★★☆
Windsurf	An AI-powered integrated development environment focused on developer productivity.	✔️ Agentic development environment ✔️ Code search ✔️ Multi-file editing ✔️ Cascade toolkit ✔️ AI agents for coding assistance ✔️ Context-aware editing	Developers, teams	User-friendly ★★★★☆

Final Tips for Success with Vibe Coding 🚀

Speak / write clearly – AI understands well, but it can’t read minds
Start small – simple tasks help you understand the dynamic
Use the responses – ask the AI to explain what it did
Learn as you go – this is a great opportunity to learn programming through real-world use

Artificial intelligence helps us break down barriers and empowers each of us to become an entrepreneur. All we need is a good idea or a problem we’ve always wanted to solve, and we can start building the product we’ve always dreamed of. If you’re looking for a new way to create, develop, and build digital things – Vibe Coding is it. You don’t need to know how to code to get started. You just need to know what you want, and to start experimenting.

⚠️ If you want to see how to deal with the flood of new tools, read the post on AI FOMO.

If you enjoyed this – share it. If you tried it – let me know how it went. And if you got stuck – send me the code 😉