I'll be honest, I'm not a stranger to vibe-coding and AI-agents at this point. I will admit I'm still a bit of a novice. I'm still in the process of learning how to make agent files, for example, and learning which AI agent I like the best.

My Journey so far

At my work we've been pretty much... dare I say forced... to use AI. Instead, let's say I've been highly encouraged to use AI to vibe code. But I've hardly been going into this kicking and screaming.

It started out with Co-pilot and Cursor just duking it out in our PRs with suggestions, potential bugs, and opinions on legal text -- I wish I was joking on that one. I legit had Co-pilot try to tell me how to edit the language in a terms of service doc.

I quickly learned to copy the PR suggestion and past it into the agent to have it fix itself for me. And that is good for maybe half to two-thirds of issues.

Next they have me a cursor license and I'm vibe coding all the things. So far it's mainly coding tests and github actions for me. I hate writing those yaml files. So hard to test when you've got company secrets they need to consume.

I've had to PR review some agent files and skills now too and I'm seeing integrations and instructions for our AI overloards to access JIRA and our design library to basically do my job for me.

I don't know how I feel about that.

And now today, here I am, trying out codex at my partner's suggestion. I did struggle a little with it at first as I had properly borked my themes directory for my blog. I had it nuke what was there and start over with a new theme. It ran with my instructions. It made a pretty checklist and started checking items off that list. It gave me a pretty decent theme with a small bug or two that -- with more prompting -- fixed itself right up.

I'm very pleased with my functional and admittedly basic, blog site.

Usefulness vs Overreliance

I have no used AI to vibe code both for work and a personal project. I quickly realized I needed to vibe code to fix my busted blog and I'm glad I did. I have realized that I have, unfortunately, started to become a bit dependent on it. I use AI at work to do the jobs I like doing the least. I fear that I will become too reliant on it. If it writes all the tests and the GHA (github actions) for me, when will I have practice and hone those skills.

Alternatively, is honeing those skills even worth it? Some of those menial tasks are a chore no matter how good of a developer you become (looking at you github actions). And other skills like test writing, well are they a means to an end? Or is it worh honing those skills for those times you don't have AI?

What if I need it to start doing my job? What if I get lazy and don't check it's work because I know full well that sometimes it gets hung up on weird edge cases and won't let it go even if it doesn't matter.

Summary

I have intentionally not discussed AI in a writing context. That will be a topic for a different blog post, for sure. I have discussed AI in a creative sense either. So far, I've primarily used it for coding and It has helped me take care of those tasks where I drag my feet.

From the Github actions, boring configs, tests, and getting vitepress to freaking work, AI is an awesome tool. But it's always, always, always important to check your work.