Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
If you’ve ever spent 6 hours trying to fix a dropdown menu only to end up with 100 new lines of spaghetti code and no dropdown, congratulations you’ve just been inducted into the very exclusive, very cursed club of vibe coders trapped in an infinite loop with AI.
Let’s talk about what actually works.
1. The 3-Strike Rule
If your AI assistant can’t fix something after 3 tries, it’s not going to fix it on the 4th. Or the 40th. Trust me, I watched my React app balloon from 2,000 to 18,000 lines of progressively weirder code. At one point, it was wrapping the entire app in try-catch blocks just to handle one dropdown bug.
Moral of the story? After 3 failed attempts, stop. Take a screenshot. Save your sanity. Move on.
2. Context Windows Are Not Your Friend
AI models have the memory of a goldfish with ADHD. After 10-ish messages, it forgets why it even exists. I once had Claude genuinely convinced we were building a recipe blog. We weren’t. We were debugging a voice persona switcher for an AI assistant. Somehow, somewhere along the way, the “assistant” part got dropped and “grilled chicken” took its place.
Here’s how I stay sane:
- Save the working code in a separate file
- Start a fresh chat every 8–10 messages
- Paste only the broken component
- Add a one-liner about what the app does (“This is a scheduling app for yoga instructors”)
It feels tedious but it cuts debugging time by like 70%. Worth it.
3. The “Explain Like I’m Five” Test
Here’s a hard truth: if you can’t explain the bug in one sentence, no one can help you fix it. I once said:
“The state isn’t syncing properly because the data flow’s weird but also the UI flickers when the input updates and the network response has this delay that maybe breaks the context provider?”
AI just blinked at me. Same as I did.
Now I force myself to say:
- “Button doesn’t save user data.”
- “Page crashes on refresh.”
- “Image upload returns undefined.”
Simple. Boring. Accurate. It works.
4. Version Control
Git is your time machine. But only if you actually use it.
Not “once a day.” Not “when I remember.” I’m talking after every working feature. No exceptions.
Last week I had 42 commits. 31 were rollback points. Only 11 were “progress.” And you know what? That’s a win. Because those 31 saved me from rewriting days’ worth of functionality. I commit like winter’s coming and nuts are scarce.
5. The Nuclear Option: Burn It Down
If you’ve been stuck on one bug for more than 2 hours, that code isn’t code anymore it’s a trap. Delete it.
No seriously. Copy the core logic somewhere safe, then nuke the rest. Tell AI what you wanted in plain English and ask for a fresh component.
Most times, it takes 20 minutes. Compare that to 4 more hours of Ctrl+Z-ing your soul into oblivion.
Bonus: Learn to Code (Yeah, I Know)
I didn’t want to say it either, but here we are. Vibe coding works better when you actually understand what AI is doing wrong. Otherwise, it’s just two confused beings one human, one silicon, staring at broken code like it’s a magic eye puzzle that won’t resolve.
Honestly, it’s like driving with GPS: super useful, but only if you still know how to read a map when it reroutes you through a lake.
TL;DR for Vibe Coders Trying Not to Lose Their Minds
- AI breaks stuff after 3 tries? Stop. Reset.
- Keep chats short and code snippets shorter.
- Explain bugs like you’re five.
- Git commit like a maniac.
- If it’s cursed, burn it and rebuild.
- And maybe just maybe actually learn what a callback function is.
Debug smarter, not longer.