There’s a style of coding we see everywhere, “vibe-coding.”

You’ve probably done it. I have, too.

You get excited about an idea. You open your editor. No plan. No design doc. Just vibes.

And it feels good. It’s fun. You’re fast. You're making stuff.

Until you circle back to the code a few days later and realize you’ve created something nobody (not even you) can maintain. Files named temp, functions called magic(), folders like helpers2, and that sinking feeling that you’d have to read 400 lines just to refactor a button.

This isn't about criticizing moving fast. In fact, some of the best ideas come from these creative bursts. But as the codebase gets bigger, chaos starts to set in. What starts as a fun side project can slowly become messy and hard to manage.

Productivity Isn’t a Tempo — It’s a Process

The tricky thing about fast development is that it gives a false sense of productivity.

You ship something quickly, but can anyone else be on board with it? You write clever functions, but did you forget how they work two weeks later? You refactor a huge component, but did you leave behind documentation or just vibes?

A recent study found that 76% of developers have to rewrite or refactor at least half of AI-generated code before it’s production-ready.

It's not about how fast you code, it's about what you leave behind. Can someone else (or even future you) pick it up and continue where you left your code? It doesn't mean you need to write documentation every time you change something. Sometimes, it's a clean file structure, a clear commit message, or a few words explaining why, not just what.

Vibe Coding With Invisible Guardrails

There’s a balance somewhere between rigid structure and chaos, and that’s where the most productive developers live.

They don’t write 3-page docs. But their code tells a story. They skip the planning sometimes. But their system always remains logical. They vibe code but still build things that make sense tomorrow.

According to Amazon, Developers spend only about one hour per day on actual coding tasks. The remaining time is consumed by activities like understanding codebases, drafting documentation, testing, and fixing issues.

The tools that support this kind of invisible structure aren’t loud. They don’t tell you to slow down. They just sit in the background reviewing your code, helping with documentation, and giving you context when you ask for it.

They’re like friends who clean up after your late-night coding sprint without saying a word.

The Real Win? Momentum Without Rewrites

Ask any engineer what slows them down the most. It’s not typing speed. It’s context-switching, hunting through code they barely remember writing, trying to decode someone else’s logic without clues.

When you lose context, you lose momentum. That’s where real productivity leaks out.

Imagine keeping momentum going even when the vibes fade because your code reviews were clear, your docs were updated automatically, and you could ask questions like “Where’s the auth flow?” and get real answers.

It's not about writing more code. It's about wasting less time understanding what's already in the codebase.

It's Still Vibes. But Sharper.

Fast coding isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s speeding up.

In early 2025, engineers are already seeing entire features scaffolded by AI. Teams are skipping the old cycles of planning and spec-writing, jumping straight into builds.

And that’s fine as long as we make sure we don’t bury ourselves in tech debt, unreadable logic, and silent bugs along the way.

If you’re building fast, you don’t need to slow down. But you do need support systems that keep things understandable, traceable, and maintainable.