Vibe coding: Make way for intuition-driven software

New jargon emerges regularly in the world of software development. Most terms vanish quickly, but ever so often, a term bubbles up from the cultural stew and goes mainstream—not because it introduces a breakthrough technology, but because it captures a shift in how people think about software development. ‘Vibe coding’ is one such phrase. It’s a term that reveals more about the future of programming than its whimsical name suggests.

- SIDDHARTH PAI

At its heart, vibe coding refers to an intuitive, exploratory and often nonlinear way of building software. It is less about syntax, structure and specifications, and more about assembling technology based on feel, flow and immediate feedback. The term borrows from creative fields like music and art, where creators often ‘go with the vibe’ to develop something that feels right, even if they don’t quite know how it works under the hood.

This is heresy to anyone trained in classical software engineering, where requirements are documented, systems are modelled and logic flows neatly. But in practice, vibe coding is closer to how many real-world systems are built, especially in the early stages of development. You open a no-code or low-code platform, drag and drop a few modules, try out different integrations, copy a snippet from somewhere, ask an Al assistant to generate a form or an application programming interface, and tweak things until it works. It’s not always elegant, but it’s effective. And increasingly, it’s how a surprising amount of software is getting made.