After using coding assistants casually for awhile -- think basic inline coding support, suggestions, and we'll call it "super autocomplete" -- I decided to take the plunge and vibe code a project. The results have been mostly impressive with some caveats. I wanted to write this article to gather and document my experiences so far, and lay out my current understanding of what seems to be working well and how to get the agents to do what you think you want.
In short: they are powerful, extremely helpful, and can greatly accelerate your workflow if you constrain them to tight objectives, are very clear about those objectives, enforce quality standards, are willing to review shit, and sometimes wade into the code to fix annoying things.
If left to their own devices -- e.g. if you, the developer are not particularly disciplined in setting up best practices and / or just let them churn with little oversight -- then you