Solid piece. The 'accidental architecture' framing is spot on - I've seen this play out when prototypes suddenly become production apps and nobody realized they hardcoded environment-specific stuff everywhere. The test harness point particularly landed for me because last month I had to retrofiting testing into an AI-generated feature and it took way longer than building tests upfront wouldve. One thing I'd add: versioning gets messy too when the system doesn't account for schema changes from day one.
Thank you! This is excellent. I like the system sketch and 1 pager. We work now in 1 plan document which starts like a very stripped down PRD but just headers and bullets (what building, why, key use cases, features). Then we add into that the how and implementation plan including sometimes diagrams, mockups, data-models if needed. We build all this with Claude Code and iterate on it with Claude Code. Then we have Claude Code implement it, using this plan, and updating the plan as it goes. This has worked really well for us.
Thank you for an excellent, easy to read article. I am a non-tech founder who found a founder’s business coach who has saved my butt by strategizing my app building research and process.
Your article beautifully clarified in written words what she told me yesterday and her repeated warning not to jump into vibe coding. (Which I did in the beginning because lovable was so cool.)
She forced me to do the hard work when all I wanted to do was talk to the computer and see instantly my dream come to life. After four months of research, prototypes and interviews, I’m just now ready to think of development paths.
I am determined not to make the same mistakes made in my past. I designed a 3rd party accounting desktop program in 2005. I had an idea and a painful need, so I picked up the yellow pages and hired a programmer. I had to teach him Accounting 101 and the SDK, but he did a fabulous job. I then tossed it onto my website with a shopping cart with no clue how to sell it in an attempt to recoup my programming costs.
I’ve improved at the program over the years and I’m still making sales to this day, in spite of myself and for purposes I never dreamed of. I chose the build it and they will come path. I’m not doing that again! Thanks again.
Great article - as a founder of Buzzy , ai nocode platform this has been a major challenge - we have tried to include this in our DNA, starting with a brief (mini-PRD), blueprint, datamodel etc (which form a full PRD, we call it an App Definition). We have also tried to explain the basics of System Thinking and other important skills/approaches in our docs https://docs.buzzy.buzz/the-ultimate-guide-for-vibe-coding-an-application-with-ai/system-thinking ... which also then makes it's way into our AI support agent and the AI driving our actual product, that users interact with... but it is hard trying to explain to folk who don't even know what they don't know and are chasing the idea that they can build products to make millions of dollars.
Solid piece. The 'accidental architecture' framing is spot on - I've seen this play out when prototypes suddenly become production apps and nobody realized they hardcoded environment-specific stuff everywhere. The test harness point particularly landed for me because last month I had to retrofiting testing into an AI-generated feature and it took way longer than building tests upfront wouldve. One thing I'd add: versioning gets messy too when the system doesn't account for schema changes from day one.
Thank you! This is excellent. I like the system sketch and 1 pager. We work now in 1 plan document which starts like a very stripped down PRD but just headers and bullets (what building, why, key use cases, features). Then we add into that the how and implementation plan including sometimes diagrams, mockups, data-models if needed. We build all this with Claude Code and iterate on it with Claude Code. Then we have Claude Code implement it, using this plan, and updating the plan as it goes. This has worked really well for us.
Thank you for an excellent, easy to read article. I am a non-tech founder who found a founder’s business coach who has saved my butt by strategizing my app building research and process.
Your article beautifully clarified in written words what she told me yesterday and her repeated warning not to jump into vibe coding. (Which I did in the beginning because lovable was so cool.)
She forced me to do the hard work when all I wanted to do was talk to the computer and see instantly my dream come to life. After four months of research, prototypes and interviews, I’m just now ready to think of development paths.
I am determined not to make the same mistakes made in my past. I designed a 3rd party accounting desktop program in 2005. I had an idea and a painful need, so I picked up the yellow pages and hired a programmer. I had to teach him Accounting 101 and the SDK, but he did a fabulous job. I then tossed it onto my website with a shopping cart with no clue how to sell it in an attempt to recoup my programming costs.
I’ve improved at the program over the years and I’m still making sales to this day, in spite of myself and for purposes I never dreamed of. I chose the build it and they will come path. I’m not doing that again! Thanks again.
Great article - as a founder of Buzzy , ai nocode platform this has been a major challenge - we have tried to include this in our DNA, starting with a brief (mini-PRD), blueprint, datamodel etc (which form a full PRD, we call it an App Definition). We have also tried to explain the basics of System Thinking and other important skills/approaches in our docs https://docs.buzzy.buzz/the-ultimate-guide-for-vibe-coding-an-application-with-ai/system-thinking ... which also then makes it's way into our AI support agent and the AI driving our actual product, that users interact with... but it is hard trying to explain to folk who don't even know what they don't know and are chasing the idea that they can build products to make millions of dollars.