After the vibe-coding rush comes the debugging hangover

Vibe coding makes features fast, but reliable apps take work. Stubborn bugs still demand patient, hands-on investigation. AI needs human guidance for architecture, testing, and design. There’s no denying it. Vibe code is a rush. I find that dictating a product description to the computer and seeing an app take form in front of my eyes is nothing short of magical, and maybe even somewhat addicting. For me, the early days of new app vibe coding are the best. As ideas and plans come to me, I share them with the AI, and after a few moments of deliberation, it creates them in code. Feature after feature, the full app takes form. It’s a friction-free process of ideation to manifestation. It’s breathtaking. But unfortunately, except for the simplest of apps, the approach is also unsustainable. About two weeks ago, I started work on a new Mac app, a fully customizable list manager. Yes, I know the Mac has about a thousand other list manager apps. But I’m a bit of a list manager fanatic and pretty fussy about how I want mine to work. So I decided to use Claude Code to create a list manager that looked and worked…