My definition is that heavily using AI for autocomplete or to write well defined methods is using AI, but vibe coding is instructing AI agents to complete a task and squinting at the multi-file results (e.g. "Now plan out how we will store this data... <mild feedback to the plan> Now execute that plan.").

Claude Code is very vibe code.

Vibe coding is heavily using AI, but heavily using AI is not necessarily vibe coding.

Vibe coding is when you disregard the code altogether and build something throwaway for fun that you don’t care about maintaining:

> There's a new kind of coding I call "vibe coding", where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists. […] It's not too bad for throwaway weekend projects, but still quite amusing. I'm building a project or webapp, but it's not really coding - I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works.

— https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383

I now checked that X post. Very interesting. I would say the app is already too big to just do that. I think a good approach is to give the AI small packages but control the overall structure

Others already linked the original vibe coding tweet https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383

To me, vibe coding means you don't get bogged down by the code, you just say your requirements and complain about end result until it works.

Heavily using AI, in comparison could mean 1. ask for small code snippets, 2. ask it to explain concepts, 3. ask which APIs to use and how, 4. ask it to rephrase your strings, ..., but you still "care" about the code and understand what's going on.