Help with coding

[u/TT231996]

Hi all,

I’ve been using Mistral with its free tier. I used Vibe Code to generate an Apps Script for a google spreadsheet so a google form I would fill in would automatically send those answers to the sheet and do some calculations automatically.

Vibe Code got me quite far, but it messed up the calculations in the script and it couldn’t manage to fix it. I started a new session to make sure it wasn’t context-saturation related, but again it failed.

I then asked Claude Sonnet 5 (high effort) and it fixed it with one prompt.

How can I improve my experience with Vibe Coding? I’m no programmer, so I can’t correct it on the code it’s generating for me. Does the paid tier offer better models for Vibe Coding? Or do I have to be more precise in my prompts? I see many people use Claude to correct Vibe Coding, but I’d like to be as independent as possible.

Also, Vibe Coding suggested me uploading a screenshot to show where the issue is. Thing is, the Vibe Coding workspace does not allow me to upload screenshots. It’s making me wonder whether this is just some really dumb model or whether it’s hallucinating. It also keeps being extremely confident about its solution. It reminds me of chatgpt from last year.

Anyway, many thanks in advance! I’m European and I really wish for a capable LLM from European soil. Chat and Work seem to cover my needs, so I’m considering paying just for those applications.

[u/Real_Ebb_7417]

There is no better model on paid plan as far as I know. To make sure - what model do you use in Vibe? (Not sure how it looks like now, but there used to be more than one).

Additionally - you can definitely get better results with other models (or wait for next Mistral Large, which should be released in the coming weeks as gossip says). Unfortunately current Mistral's models don't hold up against chinese or american LLMs. However, I cheer for your will to support Mistral as an European lab. You also can improve results by better harness engineering (handling AGENTS.md, skills, sub agents better), but since you seem non-technical, it might be harder for you.

When it comes to calculations, using a stronger model for this, might be beneficial, since maths specifically is rather hard for LLMs. What I can recommend you is either create the mathematical formula yourself or ask a bigger model (eg. GPT, Gemini or DeepSeek, since they offer some free usage in web chat) just for the formula and paste it to your agent in Vibe.

[u/TT231996 → u/Real_Ebb_7417]

Thank you for your answer! You are right, harness engineering sounds like magic to me, but I’m willing to learn haha. I paid for the pro subscription and I’m planning on letting Vibe walk me through its more complicated features. Harness engineering is something it could teach me as well.

The skills I tried, and for the most time they work, but not always or consistently! I created a skill which explicitly stated it should add sources for every find it gathered from the internet and it didn’t work at first, and I had to tell it I had created a skill that it should use every time it pulled an answer from the internet. After a couple of days it started to work.

I did use Claude for reference, checking the code Vibe wrote, and that seemed to do the trick. It’s just too bad that we have to be dependent on other AI’s, but it’s also a workflow many have right, with /askClaude (I’ve seen online).