A year ago "vibe coding" was a joke on Twitter. Now it's how a lot of people actually build things. Solo founders ship MVPs over a weekend. Backend engineers spin up frontends they'd never have touched. Non-programmers automate spreadsheets. And the model doing most of the typing? Increasingly, it's Claude.
This guide explains what vibe coding really is, where the term came from, why Claude is a strong pick, and — the part most posts skip — how to do it without shipping a pile of buggy slop.
What is vibe coding, in plain words?
Vibe coding is writing software by describing what you want in plain language and letting an AI model produce the code. You stay in the loop — you run it, look at the result, and ask for changes — but you're steering with intent, not hand-writing every line.
The classic version goes further: you barely read the code at all. You describe a feature, the model writes it, you run it, and if it works, you keep going. You're coding by vibe — gut feel and iteration — instead of careful line-by-line authorship.
That's the pure form. In practice most people land somewhere in the middle: heavy AI generation, but with the human reading diffs and catching mistakes. Both count.
Where did the term come from?
Andrej Karpathy — co-founder of OpenAI, former director of AI at Tesla — coined it in a February 2025 tweet. He described "a new kind of coding I call vibe coding, where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists." He talked about accepting all suggestions, pasting error messages back in without reading them, and letting the model just... handle it.
The phrase caught fire because it named something people were already doing. The Russian-speaking dev world picked it up fast too — search volume for "вайб кодинг" and "вайбкодинг" runs into the tens of thousands per month on Yandex.
Is vibe coding the same as using an AI assistant?
Not quite. Autocomplete and chat assistants help you write code you are authoring. Vibe coding flips the default: the AI authors, you direct. The difference is who holds the pen. With a true vibe-coding loop you're describing outcomes ("add a dark mode toggle that persists in localStorage") rather than typing the implementation.
Why is Claude a strong model for vibe coding?
Because vibe coding lives or dies on two things: how well the model understands a messy, real codebase, and how often its edits actually run. Claude is good at both.
Here's the lineup and where each model fits:
| Model | Best for | Claudexia price (from) |
|---|---|---|
| Sonnet 4.6 | Everyday loops, fast iteration, most edits | $0.33/1M |
| Haiku | Cheap bulk edits, quick lookups, simple changes | $0.33/1M |
| Opus 4.8 | Hard refactors, tricky bugs, architecture | $0.50/1M |
The pattern that works: vibe with Sonnet, escalate to Opus when stuck. Sonnet 4.6 is fast and cheap enough to run a tight describe-generate-run loop all day. When you hit a gnarly bug or a cross-cutting refactor that Sonnet keeps fumbling, switch to Opus 4.8 for the deep reasoning, then drop back down.
That routing is most of the cost-control story, and we'll come back to it. For a side-by-side on which model to pick when, see Sonnet vs Opus vs Haiku.
What tools do you vibe code with?
You don't vibe code in a chat window with copy-paste. You use a tool that can read your repo, edit files, and run commands. The big three:
- Claude Code — Anthropic's terminal-native agentic CLI. Lives in your shell, reads the whole repo, edits across files, runs tests, and loops. Best for "do this across the codebase, I'll review." Setup details in the Claude Code setup guide.
- Cursor — a VS Code fork with Composer and inline diffs. Best when your eyes are on the file and you want to accept/reject changes visually. The Claude Code vs Cursor comparison breaks down which shape fits which workflow.
- OpenCode — an open-source terminal agent, model-agnostic. Good if you want full control and no vendor lock-in.
All three work with Claude through Claudexia's OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Point base_url at https://api.claudexia.tech, paste your sk_cdx_… key, and you're running.
Can you make these more powerful?
Yes — with MCP servers. The Model Context Protocol lets your tool talk to your database, hit internal APIs, read tickets, or run custom tools. That turns vibe coding from "edit files" into "edit files with real context about my system." See the MCP servers guide to wire it up.
What does a realistic vibe-coding workflow look like?
Forget the fantasy where you type one sentence and ship a startup. The real loop is short, repeated, and has you in it. Five steps:
- Describe. Tell the model what you want, concretely. Not "make a login page" — "add email/password login, validate on the server, store the session in an httpOnly cookie, redirect to /dashboard on success."
- Generate. Let it write. With Claude Code that's one prompt and it edits multiple files. With Cursor it's a Composer run.
- Run. Actually execute it. Start the app, hit the endpoint, click the button. Vibe coding without running is just guessing.
- Iterate. Something's broken? Paste the error back. Wrong behavior? Describe the gap. This is where most of the time goes, and it's fine.
- Review. Read the diff before you commit. Even a quick scan catches the 20% of changes that would've bitten you later.
A concrete example. Say you want a CSV export on a reports page:
# In Claude Code, from your repo root
claude "add a CSV export button to the reports page. \
It should export the currently filtered rows, \
respect the date range, and stream the file so it \
works for 100k+ rows. Add a test for the export handler."
Claude reads your existing reports code, writes the button, the handler, and the test. You run it, the test fails because the date filter wasn't applied, you say "the export ignores the date range filter — fix it," it fixes it, the test passes. Five minutes. That's vibe coding.
How long until something works?
For a small, well-scoped feature in a codebase the model can read? Often minutes. For something fuzzy, cross-cutting, or in a giant legacy repo? Longer, with more iteration. The skill isn't typing — it's describing precisely and knowing when to stop and read.
How do you keep from shipping slop?
This is the part that separates "I built a real thing" from "I built a demo that explodes in production." Vibe coding makes it trivially easy to generate code you don't understand. Guardrails fix that.
Write tests — or make the model write them. Tests are how you verify code you didn't author line-by-line. Ask for a test with every feature: "add a test that covers the empty-cart case." If the test passes and you trust the test, you can trust the code without reading every line.
Read the diff. Not every character — but scan it. You're looking for: deleted code that mattered, hardcoded secrets, a console.log left in, an auth check quietly removed. Thirty seconds of scanning saves hours of debugging.
Control scope. The single biggest cause of vibe-coding disasters is letting the model touch too much at once. Ask for one feature. Review it. Commit it. Then the next. A huge unreviewed diff is where bugs hide.
Get a second pass. Have the model review its own work in a fresh context, or run a dedicated code-review step. The author and the reviewer shouldn't be the same active session — fresh eyes catch what tired eyes miss.
Never vibe-code secrets or auth blindly. Anything touching authentication, payments, or user data gets read carefully. The model writes a plausible-looking auth check that's subtly wrong more often than you'd like.
Is this slower than pure vibing? A little. Is it the difference between a toy and a product? Yes.
How do you control the cost?
Vibe coding burns tokens — you're generating a lot of code and iterating. The good news: with pay-per-token pricing you only pay for what you use, and a few habits keep the bill small.
Route by difficulty. Default to Sonnet 4.6 or Haiku. Only reach for Opus 4.8 on the hard stuff. Running everything on Opus is the most common way people overspend.
Use prompt caching. When you're looping on the same codebase, the model re-reads a lot of the same context. Prompt caching charges that repeated context at a fraction of the price. On a long vibe session it's a big saving — details in the API cost-saving strategies.
Keep context tight. Don't dump your whole repo into every prompt. Point the model at the files that matter. Less context = fewer tokens = lower cost and often better answers.
Batch the boring stuff. Bulk edits and non-urgent generation can run on Haiku or in batches.
Claudexia is pay-per-token with no subscription. Sonnet and Haiku start from $0.33/1M tokens, Opus from $0.50/1M. You can run a serious vibe-coding habit for the cost of a couple of coffees a week. The pricing page has the full breakdown.
How do you start vibe coding from Russia without a VPN?
Direct Anthropic access is blocked for Russian users — the console rejects your IP, cards get declined, VPNs work for a day then stop. Claudexia routes around all of that. It's a gateway to Claude (Opus, Sonnet, Haiku) with no Anthropic account and no VPN required.
Setup takes about 15 minutes:
- Register at claudexia.tech with email or Telegram.
- Top up with SBP, a Russian bank card, crypto, or MTS.
- Create an API key — it looks like
sk_cdx_…. - Point your tool at the endpoint:
# Works with Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, any OpenAI-compatible SDK
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://api.claudexia.tech"
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="sk_cdx_your_key_here"
- Start vibing. Open Claude Code or Cursor and describe what you want.
The full walkthrough lives in the Claude Code Russia setup guide and the Claude Code docs.
When should you NOT vibe code?
Honest answer: plenty of times. Vibe coding is a power tool, not a religion.
- Security-critical code. Auth, crypto, payment flows, anything handling personal data. Generate if you want, but read every line and test hard. The cost of a subtle bug here is real.
- Code you'll maintain for years. If you don't understand the architecture the model produced, you can't extend it later. For long-lived core systems, slow down and learn what's being built.
- When you can't verify it. If you have no way to test or check the output — no tests, no way to run it, no domain knowledge — you're not vibe coding, you're gambling.
- Highly novel problems. Models are great at common patterns and weak at genuinely new ones. If you're doing something the training data has never seen, expect to do more of the thinking yourself.
- When learning is the point. If you're trying to actually learn a language or framework, letting the AI write everything skips the part where you get better.
The rule of thumb: vibe code freely for prototypes, internal tools, glue code, and features you can verify. Slow down for anything that's hard to undo.
FAQ
What is vibe coding in simple words?
It's building software by telling an AI what you want in plain language and letting it write the code, instead of typing every line yourself. You describe the feature, run what the model produces, and ask for fixes until it works. You steer with intent; the AI does the typing.
Which AI model is best for vibe coding?
For most people, Claude is the strongest pick because its edits run reliably and it understands real codebases well. Use Sonnet 4.6 for fast everyday loops and Opus 4.8 for hard refactors and tricky bugs. There's no single "best" for every task — the smart move is routing: cheap model by default, expensive model when stuck.
Can you vibe code for free, or cheaply?
There's no truly free production-grade option, but pay-per-token gets you very close. Through Claudexia, Sonnet and Haiku start from $0.33/1M tokens — a full evening of vibe coding can cost under a dollar if you keep context tight and route by difficulty. No subscription, so you pay only for what you actually use.
Is vibe coding safe for production apps?
Yes, if you add guardrails. Write tests, read your diffs, keep scope small, and review security-sensitive code by hand. The danger isn't the AI — it's shipping code nobody read. With a test suite and a review pass, vibe-coded features ship to production every day.
Do I need an Anthropic account or a VPN to vibe code with Claude?
No. Claudexia is a gateway to Claude that needs neither. Register, top up with SBP, a Russian card, crypto, or MTS, create an sk_cdx_… key, point your tool at https://api.claudexia.tech, and you're running — from Russia, no VPN.
Ready to start? Grab a key and point your editor at Claude in about 15 minutes with the Claudexia quickstart. Questions? Reach us on Telegram or at support@claudexia.tech.