Vibe Coding in the Real World: Projects, Clients, and Legacy Code

Part of the Vibe Coding course

Tutorials give you clean, empty files. Real work gives you a decade-old codebase nobody fully understands, a client who wants it done yesterday, and constraints tutorials never mention: security, licensing, and other people's money. This lesson is about using AI where it is messiest and most valuable, on real projects with real stakes.

Most people reach for AI to write new code. On real projects, its most valuable use is often the opposite: helping you understand code that already exists. Legacy code is existing code you inherited, often old, under-documented, and load-bearing, that you have to work with rather than replace. ...