When Andrej Karpathy coined the term "vibe coding," he described a workflow where he would "fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists." By 2025 and into 2026, the practice became far more disciplined — and this guide walks through the structured, four-stage workflow that makes AI-first development repeatable and production-ready. Table of Contents What Vibe Coding Actually Means in 2026 The Core Workflow: Prompt, Generate, Review, Refine Stage 1: Prompt (Designing Your Intent) Stage 2: Generate (AI Produces the First Draft) Stage 3: Review (The Developer's Critical Eye) Stage 4: Refine (Iterating with Precision) Putting It All Together: A Complete Vibe Coding Session The Vibe Coding Implementation Checklist What's Next for AI-First Development What Vibe Coding Actually Means in 2026 From Andrej Karpathy's Tweet to Engineering Methodology When Andrej Karpathy coined the term "vibe coding" in a February 2023 post on X , he described a workflow where he would "fully…