Tips to improve your AI vibe coding

Bill Doerrfeld | June 3, 2025

My latest for InfoWorld outlines some top tips to make the most out of AI coding.

"So I finally tried vibe coding, and it didn't go so well..."


Posts like this are everywhere lately — and for good reason. Developers are realizing that being productive with AI coding assistants takes a lot more than just asking nicely. There's real craft to it.


These tools can hallucinate, delete code, hit context limits, degrade session quality, and quietly introduce security flaws.


So, today for InfoWorld, I pulled together expert tips from leaders at Cockroach Labs, DX, Graphite, Honeycomb, Sonar, and beyond. Their key recommendations to improve your AI coding results:


  • Improve your prompting skills
  • Find the right human-machine balance
  • Pick the right LLM for the task
  • Work in small chunks
  • Leave a trail of breadcrumbs for your AI
  • Test relentlessly
  • Feed it data schemas


In short — AI-assisted development is an entirely new muscle that developers are beginning to hone.


Also check out my previous article, which explores knowing when exactly to use AI coding assistants. Spoiler alert: they work better for some tasks than others.


Photo by Wai Yan Moe on Unsplash



Read: 7 ways to improve your AI coding results
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