The AI Pair-Programming Loop
Prompt, generate, review, refine, ship. Click through the loop every vibe coder repeats, over and over, to build real features.
Vibe coding is not one prompt and done, it is a loop. Click each stop to see what happens there.
Prompt
Describe the change you want in plain English, with enough detail to act on: the file, the behavior, the outcome.
Common pitfall: staying so vague the AI has to guess the file or the outcome.
Applied to a real example
Here is the same loop, start to finish, for one small feature.
"Add a dark mode toggle to the settings page that saves the choice in localStorage."
AI adds a toggle component, a theme context, and CSS variables for both themes.
The toggle works, but the theme resets on every page reload.
"The theme isn't persisting on reload. Read the saved value from localStorage on load."
Reload actually keeps the theme now. Commit it.
Key takeaways
- Vibe coding is a loop, not a single prompt. The review step is where the quality comes from.
- Read the diff before you accept it. Skimming is how bugs get committed.
- Refine with a targeted follow-up rather than restarting with a whole new prompt.
- Run it yourself before you call it done.