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 tasks small enough to finish in under four hours 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) ↗