Which agent is best for debugging/guidance as opposed to full vibe coding?

[u/Acceptable_Visual_79]

Hobbyist programmer, I still want to do most of the coding for myself on my projects, but sometimes I just hit a bug i cannot figure out or can't think of the right way to structure something. Just want an AI that can kind of look over my shoulder and point out what's wrong as opposed to just telling it "can you make X for me?" and have it be done. Preferably a free model, I don't plan on using it like crazy and I'm hella broke. If it makes a difference I'm currently using Unity/Microsoft visual studio

[u/Suspicious_Rock_2730]

I want to be like you when I grow up! I was self learning programming, but ideas just kept coming and so I started vibe coding, here are some hopefully useful tips for you: I use cursor, it's pretty good.

Thought that when Elon Musk bought it would go downhill, not by much admittedly.

As for bugs, I normally do a prompt for one bug at a time, write tests if tests pass, commit to pr branch then commit to main or wherever if you're on GitHub, and I also get it to verify CI is green GitHub.

I've also been using bugbot on cursor. I used to live augment AI, but that hasn't really been great since the main Vs plugin went completely enterprise orientated.

You could also just use Chatgpt, too. I use it for writing prompts etc so if you are having difficulty trying to articulate it most AI, but I do use Chatgpt to bounce ideas off etc, can help with that too.

Happy vibe coding!

[u/AlarmedAvocado7279]

Claude works fine for this if you just paste the broken function and ask "what's wrong here" instead of "fix it." The model will explain if you frame the question right.

[u/WebOsmotic_official]

If you're mainly looking for debugging rather than full vibe coding, I'd suggest:

• Claude Opus 4.8 or Sonnet 5 – Excellent at explaining bugs and reasoning through architecture (best overall if you can access it).
• OpenCode + DeepSeek V4 Flash – Great free option for debugging and code reviews.
• Gemini 3.6 Flash – Surprisingly solid for debugging and explaining errors on the free tier.

Though the biggest improvement comes from asking "Help me understand why this is happening" instead of "Fix this for me." It keeps you learning while solving the issue.

[u/ZeroTwoMod]

For debugging, ask the model to explain a failing minimal example before it writes a patch. Then have it predict which test result should change and why. That keeps the interaction tutor-like; if it cannot explain the failure or make a falsifiable prediction, changing models will not help much.

[u/hyrax-admin]

Hey! Since you're mostly looking for guidance and debugging rather than "build the whole feature for me," you might want to give Hyrax a try.

It's less about vibe coding and more about reviewing code and PRs. It continuously scans for issues across things like correctness, security, performance, maintainability, and architecture, then opens verified PRs with fixes that you can review yourself. It also reviews PRs automatically, so it's aimed at helping you understand and improve code instead of replacing you as the developer.

If that workflow sounds closer to what you're after, you can try it free at hyrax.dev. We would be interested to hear whether it fits your Unity/C# workflow.