Vibe Coding Best Practices: Move Fast Without Breaking Production

The Euphoria and the Hangover of Vibe Coding

Phase 1 (The High): You prompt Cursor with "build an app that does X" and 3 hours later you have a working UI, authentication, and a database connection. You feel like a 100x engineer.

Phase 2 (The Hangover): You try to add a new billing tier or refactor a database column. The AI edits 14 files, introduces silent state bugs, breaks your types, and forgets why the auth system was structured that way.

The 4 Rules for Sustainable Vibe Coding

RULE 1: Never Prompt Without an Immutable constitution.md

Lock your non-negotiable tech stack (e.g. Next.js 15, Tailwind, Drizzle, Zod) in a file the AI cannot hallucinate away.

RULE 2: Lock the Data Schema Before Generating UI Components

Generate solution.md with complete database tables and API contracts before asking for frontend pages.

RULE 3: Use EARS Syntax for Core Business Logic

Avoid ambiguous user stories. Use WHEN <event>, the system shall <response> for core transaction paths.

RULE 4: Execute Tasks Atomically and Verify Diffs

Break features into 10-line tasks in tasks.md. Run tests and review Git diffs after every step.

Keep the Velocity, Drop the Chaos

Spend 2 minutes specifying with MySpec to save 4 hours of debugging.

RUN SPEC ARCHITECT (FREE) ↗