How indie devs can vibe code fast without sinking their own ship
The quiet tension between vibe and discipline.
There’s a quiet war inside every indie developer I know.
One part of you just wants to build.
To open the editor, follow your curiosity, and see something real come alive on screen.
That’s the vibe coder in you — the part that moves fast, trusts intuition, and believes momentum creates clarity.
Then there’s the other voice.
The one whispering about tests, migrations, rate limits, and all the invisible things that keep production from burning down.
That’s the engineer in you — the part that’s seen systems crumble and knows “we’ll fix it later” often means “we’ll fix it never.”
Most of us swing between the two.
Too much vibe, and your SaaS turns into a spaghetti monster that terrifies future you.
Too much discipline, and you’ll design yourself into paralysis before your first user ever logs in.
The balance isn’t about finding the perfect middle ground — it’s about timing.
Phase 1: Vibe for Momentum
When you’re starting, you don’t need architecture.
You need proof. Proof that the idea resonates, that the workflow feels good, that you can sustain your own interest long enough to see it through.
Ship something messy.
Inline CSS. Hardcoded configs. A Docker Compose file running on your laptop.
If it helps you learn or get feedback faster, it’s good enough.
At this stage, your goal is to find the pulse of your product — the heartbeat that makes it worth polishing later.
Phase 2: Add Discipline for Survival
Once someone uses it — or worse, depends on it — your job changes.
You’re no longer hacking; you’re maintaining.
That’s when guardrails matter.
Not enterprise-level bureaucracy, but the indie essentials:
rate limits, structured logs, CI checks, and a migration plan that won’t kill your data.
Each layer of success earns another layer of discipline.
That’s how you scale without killing your momentum.
The Indie Balance
Vibe coding isn’t reckless.
It’s how you get to momentum.
But discipline is how you keep it.
The real art of indie software isn’t just writing good code.
It’s knowing when to write which kind of code.
TL;DR:
You start as an artist. You evolve into an engineer.
The trick is not to silence either voice — just let them take turns driving.