---
title: "How to Write a PRD for Vibe Coding"
description: "A vibe coding PRD has one job: keep the build small enough to finish. Research first, then a one-screen mini-PRD with a scope ceiling and a written stop line."
canonical_url: "https://builderscamp.com/guides/other/prd-for-vibe-coding"
date_published: "2026-09-18"
date_modified: "2026-09-27"
author: "Andre Albuquerque, Ricardo Luiz"
publisher: "Builders Camp"
guide_class: "other"
---

# How to write a PRD for vibe coding

**TL;DR:** A PRD for vibe coding exists to hold a scope ceiling, not to specify implementation: one user, one action, one screen, one stored result, with everything else written down as explicitly deferred. The build fails far more often from scope growing mid-session than from the generator being bad at code. Decide the four things Lovable's own guidance names before you prompt, then refuse to add a fifth until the loop runs end to end.

## What is a PRD for vibe coding actually for?

A PRD for vibe coding holds a ceiling. Vibe coding, the practice of describing what you want in natural language and letting a model generate the code, removes the cost that used to enforce scope discipline automatically. When a feature took an engineer three days, nobody added a fifth one casually. When it takes ninety seconds to type, everybody does, and the build stops finishing.

So the document does a different job than the [PRD template](https://builderscamp.com/guides/templates/prd-template) that a team hands to engineers. It is not there to communicate intent to a person who will ask clarifying questions. It is there to be the thing you refuse to change while a build is running. Length is the first thing to change: in his [history of the PRD](https://www.news.aakashg.com/p/product-requirements-documents-prds), Aakash Gupta notes that Marty Cagan's guide "How to Write a PRD," the reference document of its era, ran to 37 pages. A vibe coding PRD should fit on one screen.

Lovable's prompting guidance says the quiet part directly, after listing four questions to answer before you build: "You’re not writing a spec doc. You’re setting direction." The four questions are what this product or feature is, who it is for, why they will use it, and what the one key action the user should take is. That last question is the ceiling. One key action, singular.

## What should you research before writing the PRD?

Three things: who has the problem, what they use today, and what the smallest version worth building would be. The step exists because the first prompt is cheap enough to replace thinking. Without it, you describe a solution, the tool builds it, and hours later you learn that the people you had in mind already solve the problem with a spreadsheet they are happy with.

AI deep research tools make this step fast enough that skipping it no longer saves time. Google describes [Gemini Deep Research](https://gemini.google/overview/deep-research/) as a feature that "can automatically browse up to hundreds of websites" and "create insightful multi-page reports in minutes." Whichever research tool you use, the output is raw material, not a verdict: it will surface forum complaints, competitor pages and pricing, and you still decide which pains are real.

A research prompt that works for a first build asks for four things in order:

1. The pains: who experiences this problem, how often, and in their own words where possible.
2. The alternatives: what people use today, including spreadsheets and doing nothing, and what they dislike about each.
3. The MVP options: two or three scopes of different sizes, each described as one user, one action and one result.
4. The mini-PRD: for the smallest scope, a one-screen document in the skeleton below.

Take an invented example. You want a tool for a volunteer football club to track who has paid the season fee. Research tells you treasurers already use a shared spreadsheet, and the real pain is not tracking payments but chasing the parents who have not paid. That changes the one key action from "record a payment" to "see who still owes, and send them a reminder," before a single screen exists.

## What goes in a mini-PRD for vibe coding?

Seven short sections, on one screen. Paste it at the top of the build tool's planning or chat mode as the first prompt, and keep it open while you build:

```
Problem: [one sentence, in the user's words]
User: [one user type only]
Current alternative: [what they do today, and what hurts about it]
Key action: [the one thing the user does in this version]
Screen and data: [the one screen, every field and its type, the empty state, the main button's exact words]
Deferred: [logins, payments, roles, notifications, anything multi-user, each listed explicitly]
Done when: [one sentence a stranger could test on a deployed URL]
```

Every line is there to stop a specific failure. "Current alternative" stops you building something worse than a spreadsheet. "Key action" is the ceiling. "Screen and data" removes the decisions the generator would otherwise make for you. "Deferred" turns "later" into a scope decision instead of a surprise. "Done when" is the stop line, covered at the end of this page.

## Why does the scope ceiling decide whether the build finishes?

Because generated builds fail by stalling, not by producing wrong code. The characteristic failure is a project that is nearly working in four different directions and finished in none of them, which happens when the target moved three times during the session.

Write the ceiling as a sentence you could put on a sticky note: one user type, one action, one screen where the action happens, one place the result gets stored. Then write the deferred list underneath it, explicitly, because an unwritten "we'll add that later" is indistinguishable from "we forgot" by the time somebody asks.

Builders Camp's Zero to Shipped with Vibe Coding bootcamp builds its practical challenge on a scope that fits exactly inside that constraint. A product manager builds a meeting cost calculator in 45 minutes before a call runs long, leaving it broken in four specific ways, and you have 60 minutes to get it presentable for a leadership meeting. The whole tool does one thing: you enter who is in the meeting and how long it runs, and it tells you what that cost. Nothing about the exercise is impressive in scope, and that is the point. It finishes.

## What does a vibe coding spec have to be concrete about?

The things the model will otherwise decide for you. A traditional PRD deliberately leaves implementation open so an engineer can pick a better approach; here, anything you leave open gets filled in by the generator on the spot, and you will discover its choice by looking at a screen.

That means naming, specifically: every field and its type, what the screen shows when there is no data yet, what happens when a required field is empty, and the actual words on the primary button. Lovable's guidance pushes further in the same direction, recommending you prompt by component rather than by page, describe interface elements in atomic terms (a card, a badge, a modal, a toast) rather than as "a section", and write real copy instead of placeholder text, because lorem ipsum hides layout problems that real words reveal immediately.

Design direction belongs in the spec too, up front. The same guidance treats visual language as a foundation rather than a finishing pass, for a practical reason: a look that is wrong is harder to correct after five screens exist than to state in one line before the first one does.

## What to leave out until the core loop runs

Authentication, payments, roles and permissions, email notifications, anything that involves two people seeing different things. Each of those multiplies the state the generator has to hold consistent, and none is required to find out whether the core idea works.

Builders Camp's Building with Lovable bootcamp puts the sequencing in its challenge explicitly: a product manager at a five person startup has 2 weeks, no developer, and a methodology, Define, Design, Structure, Execute, Iterate, Publish. Week one is a working pipeline tracker. Week two is when the CEO asks whether each sales rep can log in and see only their own deals, and whether it can be charged for, and that second question is where the build meets identity, security and billing as separate, deliberate decisions rather than as things the first prompt should have handled.

The rule that holds: the deferred list is part of the spec, not a note to yourself. Written down, it is a scope decision. Unwritten, it is a surprise.

## The counterargument: the tools themselves say skip the spec

The honest tension is that the tools themselves play down written specs, and it deserves stating rather than implying. Lovable's own documentation recommends letting the tool ask clarifying questions after you state what you want, and describes planning as direction setting rather than specification. Karpathy's original framing of vibe coding, when he coined the term in February 2025, was about giving in to the vibes and forgetting the code exists. Neither of those sounds like a document.

Both are right about the same thing and wrong about a different one. They are right that writing a detailed implementation spec wastes the speed advantage entirely: if you specify at that level, you have done the hard part by hand and gained nothing. They underweight what happens on hour three, when the build is half done, you have made eleven decisions in chat, and you can no longer remember which of them you meant and which the tool suggested. The spec is not there to instruct the model. It is there so that you, later, can tell what you agreed to.

Keep it to roughly one screen of text. If it is longer than the thing being built deserves, it has stopped being a ceiling and started being work. Once the project outgrows one screen of spec, [vibe coding vs spec-driven development](https://builderscamp.com/guides/comparison/vibe-coding-vs-spec-driven-development) covers when to turn the dial further.

## Who this is for, and who it is not for

A vibe coding PRD fits a non-technical builder or product manager shipping something real without a developer, which is what Builders Camp's Zero to Shipped with Vibe Coding covers across 1 week and 2 live sessions, from defining the smallest shippable version through backend integrations, deployment, and the post-ship iteration loop. If the tool you are using is Lovable specifically, Building with Lovable runs 2 weeks and states plainly that no coding is required and the bootcamp is designed for non-technical professionals. Both sit inside the Vibe Coding Expert Track for people who want the sequence rather than a single week.

It is not for a production system with real customer data. The published criticism of vibe coding lands on maintainability and security risk, and those risks concentrate exactly where a fast build skips: validation, authentication, and anything touching payments. A vibe coded tool used internally by six people is a different risk profile than the same code taking customer card details, and the spec is not what closes that gap. Review is.

## Write the stop line before you write the first prompt

Finish the spec with one sentence naming what has to be true for you to stop: not "when it's good", but "when a user can enter three attendees and a duration and see a total, on a deployed URL, without me explaining anything". Then stop there, even though the next idea is sitting right in front of you and would only take a minute. The builds that ship are almost never the ambitious ones. They are the ones where somebody wrote down, in advance, what finished meant.

[See the Zero to Shipped with Vibe Coding bootcamp](https://builderscamp.com/bootcamps/zero-to-shipped-with-vibe-coding?utm_source=guide&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=prd-for-vibe-coding)

For the term itself, see [vibe coding](https://builderscamp.com/guides/glossary/vibe-coding). For the tool specific walkthrough, [how to build a prototype with Lovable](https://builderscamp.com/guides/tools/build-a-prototype-with-lovable), and for the wider path, the [Vibe Coding Expert Track](https://builderscamp.com/tracks/vibe-coding-expert).

## Frequently asked questions

### Should I research the problem before writing a vibe coding PRD?

Yes, briefly. Use an AI deep research tool to find who has the problem, what they use today and what the smallest useful version would be, then ask it to turn the findings into a mini-PRD. Thirty minutes of research costs less than one afternoon spent building the wrong thing.

### Does vibe coding need a PRD at all?

It needs a scope contract, which is a smaller thing. Lovable's own prompting guidance says directly that the planning step is not a spec document, it is setting direction, and answers four questions: what this is, who it is for, why they use it, and the one key action the user should take. Write those down and you have most of what a vibe coded build needs.

### How small is small enough?

One user, one action, one screen where that action happens, and one place the result is stored. If your spec mentions a second type of user before the first one can complete the loop, the build is likely to stall in the middle rather than finish badly.

### What is the difference from a normal PRD?

A normal PRD leaves implementation open so engineers can choose. A vibe coding spec has to be concrete about the things the generator would otherwise invent: the exact fields, the exact empty state, the exact words on the button, because those get decided either by you or by the model, and there is no third option.

### Should the spec include design direction?

Yes, early, and in specific terms. Lovable's guidance treats visual language as a foundation rather than a polish layer and recommends stating a style direction up front, because design problems are harder to fix later than to decide before the first screen exists.

### What should be deliberately left out of the first spec?

Authentication, payments, permissions, notifications and anything multi-user. Each of those doubles the surface the generator has to keep consistent, and none of them is needed to prove the core loop works. Add them once the loop is real, as their own scoped pass.

### Why do vibe coded builds stall halfway?

Usually because the spec grew mid-build. Each new instruction is cheap to type and expensive to integrate, so a build that was ninety percent done against the original scope becomes forty percent done against the new one, with no version of it finished.

### Is the output safe to put in front of real users?

Treat it as a demo until someone reviews it. Critics of vibe coding cited in the general literature point at maintainability and security risk specifically, and the risk is concentrated exactly where a fast build skips: authentication, data validation and anything handling money.

## Sources

- [Lovable Docs: Prompting best practices](https://docs.lovable.dev/prompting/prompting-one)
- [Wikipedia: Vibe coding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibe_coding)
- [Aakash Gupta: Product Requirements Documents (PRDs), A Modern Guide](https://www.news.aakashg.com/p/product-requirements-documents-prds)
- [Google Gemini: Deep Research overview](https://gemini.google/overview/deep-research/)

## How this guide was made

Researched from Builders Camp's bootcamp, track and masterclass material and the sources listed on this page, drafted with AI, and fact-checked against every source cited.