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

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:

You can vibe code and launch a complex app extremely quickly

I built Proof on the side while running a company of about two dozen employees.

I first committed code to Proof’s Github repository in early January. Back then, it was a MacOS app. Two and a half weeks ago, I pivoted it to be web-only. The final form that we launched was about 10 days old, and in that time, I’d built a version that was stable enough that it had become a critical internal tool at Every, and was being used by a small cohort of enthusiastic subscribers, too.

Create a free account to continue reading

The Only SubscriptionYou Need to Stay at the Edge of AI

The essential toolkit for those shaping the future

"This might be the best value youcan get from an AI subscription."

• Jay S.

Every Content

AI&I Podcast

Monologue

Cora

Sparkle

Spiral

Join 100,000+ leaders, builders, and innovators

Email address

Already have an account? Sign in

What is included in a subscription?

Daily insights from AI pioneers + early access to powerful AI tools

Front-row access to the future of AI

Bundle of AI software

Thanks for rating this post—join the conversation by commenting below.