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When Your Vibe Coded App Goes Viral—And Then Goes Down

March 22, 2026
When Your Vibe Coded App Goes Viral—And Then Goes Down

Here's something that might surprise you — building a vibe-coded app sounds cool until it crashes at 4 a.m., right after launch. Dan Shipper, writing in Chain of Thought, shares how his app Proof went from a viral hit to total meltdown, leaving users unable to access crucial documents. Now, here's where it gets interesting — Shipper points out that vibe coding, while innovative, isn’t a magic fix. It’s fast, but bugs still happen, and fixing them can be a slow grind. According to him, AI tools are shaping the future of programming, but human engineers are still essential — especially when things go wrong. As Shipper notes, the key isn’t just coding faster but knowing how to allocate effort wisely during a crisis. So what does this mean for you? If you’re experimenting with vibe coded apps, be prepared for the inevitable crashes — and remember, the real skill lies in managing those moments. The future is a mix of AI, vibe coding, and good old human intuition.

Chain of Thought
by Dan Shipper
in Chain of Thought
full_page_cover_My_Vibe_Coded_App_Went_V
Midjourney/Every illustration.

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At 4 a.m. on the day after we launched our agent-native document editor, Proof, I watched yet another Codex agent try to revive our server.

Over 4,000 documents had been created since launch, but the app had been mysteriously crashing all day. This left users with crucial documents that they couldn’t access, and me with egg on my face.

I hadn’t slept for almost 24 hours, and all I could do was nervously munch trail mix as Codex investigated yet another bug buried deep in a codebase that I didn’t understand. It felt less like programming and more like being the dumbest participant at a math Olympiad. Needless to say, I was reconsidering my life choices.

Today, almost a week later, Proof is more or less stable. And I’ve learned a lot about both building and launching a purely vibe coded app. Perhaps more importantly, I’ve also learned what happens once that app goes live—and then goes down.

My current opinion is this: If you can vibe code it, you can vibe fix it. You just might not be able to fix it quickly.

Software engineering is changing rapidly as a discipline. The days of typing code into a computer manually seem to be over, and the current conversation on X is around “zero-human startups.” My experience with Proof, though, is a good reality check.

It demonstrates both what is truly possible with vibe coded apps, and where human engineers will continue to be critical now and in the future.

What’s possible at the edge

I’ve been writing about how AI is changing programming for a few years now, and my experience with Proof confirms a lot of my thoughts...

Become a paid subscriber to Every to unlock this piece and learn about:

  1. What it took to bring a crashing, vibe coded app back from the brink
  2. The specific failure modes coding models keep hitting
  3. Why allocation is the new key skill for human engineers

Click here to read the full post

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Audio Transcript
Chain of Thought
by Dan Shipper
in Chain of Thought
full_page_cover_My_Vibe_Coded_App_Went_V
Midjourney/Every illustration.

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up to get it in your inbox.

At 4 a.m. on the day after we launched our agent-native document editor, Proof, I watched yet another Codex agent try to revive our server.

Over 4,000 documents had been created since launch, but the app had been mysteriously crashing all day. This left users with crucial documents that they couldn’t access, and me with egg on my face.

I hadn’t slept for almost 24 hours, and all I could do was nervously munch trail mix as Codex investigated yet another bug buried deep in a codebase that I didn’t understand. It felt less like programming and more like being the dumbest participant at a math Olympiad. Needless to say, I was reconsidering my life choices.

Today, almost a week later, Proof is more or less stable. And I’ve learned a lot about both building and launching a purely vibe coded app. Perhaps more importantly, I’ve also learned what happens once that app goes live—and then goes down.

My current opinion is this: If you can vibe code it, you can vibe fix it. You just might not be able to fix it quickly.

Software engineering is changing rapidly as a discipline. The days of typing code into a computer manually seem to be over, and the current conversation on X is around “zero-human startups.” My experience with Proof, though, is a good reality check.

It demonstrates both what is truly possible with vibe coded apps, and where human engineers will continue to be critical now and in the future.

What’s possible at the edge

I’ve been writing about how AI is changing programming for a few years now, and my experience with Proof confirms a lot of my thoughts...

Become a paid subscriber to Every to unlock this piece and learn about:

  1. What it took to bring a crashing, vibe coded app back from the brink
  2. The specific failure modes coding models keep hitting
  3. Why allocation is the new key skill for human engineers

Click here to read the full post

Want the full text of all articles in RSS? Become a subscriber, or learn more.

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