Vibe Coding with Claude: A Step-by-Step Walkthrough
Vibe coding is the practice of building software by describing what you want in natural language and letting an AI tool handle the implementation. You focus on intent and behavior. The AI writes the code. The term caught on because it captures what the experience actually feels like — you describe the vibe of what you want, and code materializes.
This post walks through what a real vibe coding session looks like with Claude Code, where it works well, where it falls apart, and how to get better results.
What vibe coding actually means
Traditional coding: you think about the problem, then you think about the implementation, then you type the implementation. Vibe coding collapses the middle step. You describe the behavior you want — "a CLI tool that renames files in a directory based on their creation date" — and Claude Code writes the implementation.
You are not writing pseudocode. You are not specifying algorithms. You are describing what the finished thing should do, how it should behave, and what the interface should look like. The implementation details are delegated entirely.
A real session walkthrough
Let's build a small CLI tool that watches a directory and organizes files into subfolders by file extension.
The opening prompt:
Build a Node.js CLI tool called "tidydir" that watches a directory and automatically moves files into subdirectories based on their extension. For example, .png and .jpg files go into an "images" folder, .pdf files go into "documents", and so on. It should have a config file where I can define the mapping. Use TypeScript.
Claude Code generates the project structure, the TypeScript source, a default config file, and a package.json with the right scripts. It picks a file watcher library, sets up the extension mapping, and handles edge cases like duplicate filenames.
First iteration — something is off:
The tool crashes when the target subdirectory doesn't exist yet. It should create directories automatically. Also, I want it to ignore hidden files (anything starting with a dot).
Claude fixes both issues. It adds recursive directory creation and a filter for dotfiles. This is the core loop of vibe coding: run it, observe the behavior, describe what needs to change.
Second iteration — adding a feature:
Add a --dry-run flag that prints what would be moved without actually moving anything. And add a --verbose flag that logs each move operation.
Claude adds both flags, wires them into the argument parser, and updates the help text.
After three prompts, you have a working, configurable CLI tool with dry-run support. Total time: a few minutes. Total lines of code you wrote by hand: zero. But be aware of what happens after the prototype — the gap between a working demo and a production-ready tool is real.
When vibe coding works well
It shines in specific contexts:
- Prototypes and proof-of-concepts. When you need to validate an idea quickly and the code does not need to be production-grade.
- Scripts and one-off tools. File processors, data transformers, CLI utilities. Things with clear inputs and outputs.
- Internal tools. Admin dashboards, migration scripts, reporting tools. Things where correctness matters more than polish.
- Boilerplate-heavy work. Setting up project scaffolding, writing CRUD endpoints, generating test fixtures.
- Learning new frameworks. Describing what you want to build and seeing how Claude structures the code in an unfamiliar library teaches you the patterns fast.
The common thread: well-defined scope, clear success criteria, and tolerance for imperfect code on the first pass.
When it breaks down
Vibe coding has real limits, and pretending otherwise wastes your time.
- Complex systems with many interacting components. Claude does not hold a mental model of your entire architecture. The more moving parts, the more likely it generates code that works in isolation but breaks in context.
- Performance-critical code. If you need to optimize memory allocation patterns or squeeze latency out of a hot path, you need to understand the implementation. Delegating that to natural language descriptions does not work.
- Code that requires deep domain knowledge. Cryptography, distributed consensus, financial calculations with specific regulatory requirements. The stakes are too high to not understand every line.
- Large refactors across many files. Claude works best on focused, bounded tasks. Asking it to restructure an entire codebase in one shot usually produces inconsistent results. Using plan mode helps break these down into manageable steps.
The pattern: vibe coding struggles when you cannot verify the output by running it and checking the behavior. If correctness requires reading and understanding the code itself, you need to be the one writing it — or at least the one reviewing it carefully.
Tips for effective vibe coding
Be specific about behavior, not implementation. "Sort the list alphabetically" is better than "use a merge sort." Describe what the user sees, what the inputs and outputs are, how errors should be handled. Let Claude pick the how.
Give feedback on output, not on approach. Instead of "use a different data structure," say "this is too slow when there are more than 10,000 items." Let Claude figure out the fix.
Iterate in small steps. One feature per prompt. One bug fix per prompt. Small changes are easier to verify and less likely to introduce regressions. If you ask for five things at once, three will be right and two will be subtly wrong.
State your constraints up front. "No external dependencies." "Must work with Node 18." "Needs to handle files up to 2GB." Constraints prevent Claude from making assumptions that create problems later. A CLAUDE.md file is the best place to capture these constraints so they persist across sessions.
Read the code when it matters. Vibe coding does not mean blind trust. Skim the output. Check the error handling. Look at the edge cases. You do not need to write every line, but you should understand the important ones.
The honest limitations
Vibe coding is not a replacement for knowing how to program. It is a multiplier on existing skill. If you can already code, vibe coding makes you faster at the parts that slow you down — boilerplate, unfamiliar APIs, tedious transformations. If you cannot code at all, you will struggle to evaluate whether the output is correct, and you will hit walls that natural language alone cannot get you past.
The best vibe coding sessions happen when you know enough to describe exactly what you want, verify that you got it, and articulate precisely what needs to change. That is still programming. You are just using a different interface.