Vibe Debt

ELI5 — The Vibe Check

Vibe debt is AI-generated shortcuts that work today but will hurt later — technical debt's chaotic, fast-moving younger sibling. The code runs. Tests pass (if you wrote any). But it's held together with duct tape and good intentions. No error handling. Hardcoded values. A function that does seven things. You'll pay for every shortcut when you try to add the next feature. The interest rate on vibe debt compounds fast.

Real Talk

Vibe debt is a specific form of technical debt introduced by AI-generated code that prioritizes working output over maintainability, consistency, or correctness guarantees. Common symptoms: missing edge case handling, copy-pasted logic instead of abstracted utilities, non-idiomatic patterns, unclear variable names, and zero test coverage. The velocity advantage of vibe coding is real — the vibe debt it generates is equally real.

When You'll Hear This

"The MVP works but it's loaded with vibe debt. We need a cleanup sprint." / "Don't add features yet — the vibe debt from last week will make it worse."