The AI can produce a draft, but without a human it isn't finished. Learn exactly where you must read, test, and reject before moving on.
Take a moment to think about it this way
Human-in-the-loop means never treating AI output as automatically correct — you set up checkpoints instead. Vibe coding has three of them. First: before you send a prompt, be clear with yourself about what you actually want. Second: read the code and understand it before you accept it. Third: see it working yourself, in the running app, in tests, or in the browser. Skip any one of these three and "vibe" turns risky fast.
Let's connect this to everyday life
The AI might write "store the user's password in localStorage." The syntax could be perfectly correct. The security is not. You'd need to reject it and ask instead for "don't store the password — use a session cookie." Keep three review questions handy: What does this code actually do? What happens if it's wrong? Does it contain any secrets or user data?
Let's try it hands-on, together
Accept only if you can answer:
1. What does this change do?
2. How will I know it works?
3. What could go wrong for a real user?Be able to apply clear criteria for accepting, editing, or rejecting an AI draft.5-minute try-it
Think of 3 bad pieces of advice the AI could give you (for example, committing a secret). For each one, write down how you'd reject it and how you'd ask it to redo the work.
One quick warning
Never treat AI output as the final, correct answer. Read through code, secrets, and user data yourself, test it, and only then put it to use.