A technical deep-dive into how the same task looks different under each approach.
Vibe coding uses AI as a code generator you prompt conversationally. Agentic coding uses AI as an autonomous developer that plans, implements, tests, and iterates. Same AI, fundamentally different workflows.
“You just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy-paste stuff, and it mostly works.”
— Andrej Karpathy, who coined the term
AI agents that autonomously plan implementation, write code with tests, validate quality through automated gates, and iterate based on feedback — with the developer as architect.
The structured evolution of AI-assisted development
The same task — “fetch user data” — produces very different results.
// Prompt: "Make a function that fetches user data and shows it"
async function getUser(id) {
const res = await fetch(`/api/users/${id}`)
const data = await res.json()
return data
}
// No error handling, no types, no validation
// Works for the demo though! 🎉// Agent: Planning user data fetcher
// Step 1: Define types
// Step 2: Implement with error handling
// Step 3: Write tests
// Step 4: Validate edge cases
interface User {
id: string
name: string
email: string
}
class UserServiceError extends Error {
constructor(
message: string,
public statusCode: number
) {
super(message)
this.name = 'UserServiceError'
}
}
async function getUser(id: string): Promise<User> {
if (!id?.trim()) {
throw new UserServiceError('User ID required', 400)
}
const res = await fetch(`/api/users/${encodeURIComponent(id)}`)
if (!res.ok) {
throw new UserServiceError(
`Failed to fetch user: ${res.statusText}`,
res.status
)
}
const data: unknown = await res.json()
return validateUser(data)
}
// + Tests, + input validation, + error typesAgents write tests as part of their workflow
Agents maintain type consistency across files
Agents consider edge cases during planning
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