Working with AI
From vibe coding to something you can put in front of users
Vibe coding works. That is the part nobody should argue with: you describe, the agent builds, and by evening there is a working demo that would have taken a team two weeks. The problem starts the moment someone other than you is going to use it.
The question that kills the demo
"Can we put this in front of users?" The honest answer for most vibe-coded projects is: nobody knows. Not because the code is bad, it might be fine, but because nothing was checked. There is no record of what the feature was supposed to do, whether the code stayed inside that intention, whether anyone looked for the standard security mistakes, or whether the flow was ever exercised end to end.
Unknown is not the same as broken. But for anything with real users, payments, or someone else's data, unknown is disqualifying. The gap between demo and product is not more code. It is answers.
Keep the vibe, add the record
The wrong fix is to slow down and code like it is 2019. The right fix is to keep describing what you want in plain words, and let a workflow generate the answers as you go. A Nanostack sprint leaves a trail behind the same agent you were already using:
- A brief that says what this is and for whom, so "done" is defined before building.
- A plan with what will change and what was cut.
- A review that confirms the work stayed inside the plan.
- A security grade on the standard failure modes.
- A QA pass that opened the app and tried the feature like a user.
The afternoon still takes an afternoon. The difference is that at the end of it, "can we ship this?" has evidence instead of a shrug.
The handover stops being embarrassing
Every vibe-coded project eventually meets an engineer: a freelancer you hire, a friend who reviews it, the team that inherits it. The usual handover is a repo with no history of intent, and the usual verdict is "rewrite it". A repo where every change carries a brief, a plan, a review, and a graded audit gets a different reception, because the work can be judged instead of guessed at.
Vibe coding got you the speed. The record is what lets you keep the speed when the stakes go up.
Start with the guided path → · You don't need to know how a code review works →