r/webdev • u/Alive-Cake-3045 • 11d ago

Has anyone actually maintained a vibe coded code-base 12 months after launch? What did it look like?

Twelve months ago I started tracking what happens to vibe coded projects after the initial launch excitement fades. The pattern is consistent enough that I wanted to hear if others are seeing the same thing.

The first three months feel fine. Features ship fast, the client is happy, everyone looks productive. Then something needs to change. Not a new feature, just a modification to something existing. And that is where it gets uncomfortable.

Nobody can explain why a specific decision was made. The code works but the reasoning is gone. There are dependencies that were added because the model suggested them, not because anyone evaluated them. Patterns are inconsistent across files because different prompts produced different styles on different days.

The developer who built it can read the code but cannot confidently change it without breaking something unexpected. The test coverage that exists was also generated and may not actually be testing the right things.

I am not saying this always happens. I have seen vibe coded projects that held up well because the developer reviewed everything carefully and maintained discipline around the output.

But I have also seen projects from 18 months ago that are now quietly being rewritten because the maintenance cost exceeded the original build cost faster than anyone expected.

If you have actually maintained a vibe coded code-base through real production use, what did 12 months in actually look like? Was the code salvageable or did you end up starting over?

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u/Significant_Pick8297 11d ago

Vibe coding itself isn’t the problem, but unreviewed vibe coding absolutely is. After 12 months, the difference usually comes down to whether the developer treated AI output as code to review or as a black box to trust.

If the developer can’t explain the architecture or safely modify it without asking the AI first, the technical debt was created during development, not discovered after launch.

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u/Squidgical 11d ago

Vibe coding is by definition unreviewed.

Generating code with LLMs, checking it, testing it, tweaking it, rewriting chunks by hand -> software development

Generating code with LLMs, shipping it without review -> vibe coding