KENNY CHIEN / PRODUCTS / THE VIBE CODING PLAYBOOK
The Vibe Coding Playbook
A field manual of prompts, patterns, and anti-patterns for shipping real software with AI.
What is The Vibe Coding Playbook?
The Vibe Coding Playbook is a digital field manual for shipping real software with AI. It collects the prompts, patterns, anti-patterns, and review workflows I use in production engagements — the working notes of vibe coding practiced as a craft, not a trick. It is written for engineers who want AI in the loop and quality out the other end.
Everything in it comes from real codebases: consulting deliveries, forward deployed engineering embeds, and the cohorts of the Vibe Coding Bootcamp, where this material is taught live. Nothing in the playbook is theoretical. If a pattern has not survived contact with a production system, it does not get a page.
AI does not produce mediocrity. Unexamined taste does. The playbook exists to make the examination systematic.
What's inside
The prompt library
Working prompts for the phases that matter: framing a spec, scaffolding a system, refactoring safely, and debugging with the model instead of against it. Each prompt annotated with when it works and when it quietly fails.
Patterns
The repeatable moves behind fast, safe AI-assisted delivery: spec-first prompting, the smallest deployable loop, test-anchored generation, and context management that keeps long sessions coherent.
Anti-patterns
A catalogue of the failure modes I see most in the field — prompt sprawl, context rot, unreviewed merges, and slop acceptance — each with the early symptoms and the corrective move.
Review workflows
How to code-review AI output without becoming the bottleneck: what to read line by line, what to test instead of read, and how to turn every review into a transfer of taste across the team.
Who it's for
Engineers who use AI daily and want their output to be production-grade, not plausible-looking
Tech leads setting the standards for how their team builds with AI in the loop
Participants of the Vibe Coding Bootcamp who want the reference text after the cohort ends
Skeptics who have seen AI slop merged to main and want the discipline that prevents it
Status and availability
The playbook is being written now, chapter by chapter, and is available on request. Email me and I will share the draft chapters that are ready, and notify you when the full edition ships. No pre-orders, no payment — just an honest early look in exchange for honest feedback.
Frequently asked questions
Is The Vibe Coding Playbook a course or a book?
A book — a digital field manual you keep next to your editor, not a video course. It is also the reference text behind the Vibe Coding Bootcamp: the bootcamp is where the material is practiced live, the playbook is where it is written down.
What does "vibe coding" mean in this playbook?
Vibe coding means shipping software at the speed of intent — treating prompting as a craft, not a trick. The playbook takes the term seriously: it is about producing production-grade software with AI in the loop, with review discipline to match, not about accepting whatever the model emits. The essay Slop is a choice is the short version of that argument.
When will it be released, and how do I get it?
It is in development, and I am not publishing a date I might miss. It is available on request: email me and I will share the current draft chapters where they are ready, and notify you when the full edition ships.
Go deeper
Want the draft chapters?
Send one line on what you build and how AI fits into it today. I will reply with the chapters that are ready and add you to the release list.