Vibe Coding Mistakes: The 8 Simple Docs You Need First

Vibe coding works best when the AI has something solid to build from. Before any prompt goes into Google Stitch, AI Studio or your code editor, you need a small stack of documents that spell out what you’re building, how, and in what order. Skip them and the AI “vibes” its way into a half-built screen, forgets why a button exists, or rebuilds the same auth flow three times because no spec exists to point back to.

What Do You Need Before You Start Vibe Coding?

You need eight documents: a Product Requirements Document (PRD), a Technical Requirements Document (TRD), a user journey, design.md, schema.md, an implementation plan, tracker.md and rules.md. Together they give the AI a fixed memory of your decisions, so every session builds on the last one instead of starting over.

• PRD: what you’re building and why.
• TRD: the tools and stack.
• User journey: the screens and how users move between them.
• design.md: the visual system.
• schema.md: the data structure.
• Implementation plan: the build order.
• tracker.md: live progress.
• rules.md: the guardrails for your AI.

Why Should You Document Your App Idea Before Vibe Coding?

Without docs, the AI improvises from your last message only. It has no memory of the decision you made two days ago about whether usernames are unique or whether comments are nested, so every session turns into a re-negotiation.

Documentation, however, fixes that. It turns your decisions into reference files the AI reads at the start of each session, and it keeps your prompts short because the context already lives in the docs. Shorter prompts also help you stop maxing out your AI tokens while coding.

1. Product Requirements Document (PRD): What Are You Building and Why?

First, the PRD defines the problem, the people and the finish line. Include:

• Problem statement: what’s broken or missing right now, stated plainly. Skip “users want a better experience” and name the actual pain.
• Target users: who, specifically. “Gen-Z Indian micro-fiction writers who post on Instagram but want a dedicated space” is specific enough that later feature decisions answer themselves.
• Core features: a prioritized list. Mark what’s v1 and what’s v2 so neither you nor the AI scope-creeps the first build.
• Success criteria: measurable outcomes, such as “a user can post a 100-word story and get a reaction within 10 seconds of opening the app” or “day-7 retention above 30%.” If you can’t measure it, it’s not a success criterion. It’s a vibe.

Why it matters: as a result, every prompt you write later should trace back to a line in this doc. When a feature request doesn’t map to anything in the PRD, either update the PRD on purpose or say no to the feature.

2. Technical Requirements Document (TRD): Which Tools Will You Use?

The TRD records your stack and, more importantly, why you chose it. Vibe coding tools generate code fast, but they still need to know which framework and backend they are writing for. Cover:

• Framework: for example, an Android stack with Kotlin and Jetpack Compose (or whatever Stitch outputs), with Firebase as the backend.
• UI approach: Stitch-generated screens, your design system and your component conventions.
• Backend and API structure: Firebase Functions if you use them, your REST conventions, and how the app talks to Firebase.
• Database: Firestore, or Postgres and Redis if you ever need something heavier server-side. Also, write down why you picked it (usually “fast to ship, real-time sync, fits Firebase Auth”) so future-you doesn’t second-guess it mid-build.
• Auth and security baseline: Firebase Auth, App Check and your rate-limiting approach. Reference your Firestore Security Rules here, and keep the rules themselves in a separate appendix.
• Third-party services: image hosting, push notifications, analytics and anything else you plug in.

3. User Journey Document: How Do Users Move Through the App?

Some builders call this the “app flow.” In vibe coding, it tells the AI which screen comes next so it doesn’t invent its own navigation. It maps:

• Screens: every screen in the app, roughly sketched. Pixel-perfect detail, on the other hand, is design.md’s job.
• Paths: how users move between screens, e.g. onboarding → home feed → post creation → comment → profile.
• Branch points: what happens on an error, on an empty state, and for first-time vs. returning users.

4. design.md: What Should the App Look Like?

Your design system document keeps AI-generated screens consistent from one session to the next. Without it, vibe coding tools default to generic Material Design. Note down:

• Typography: font family, weight scale, and sizes for headers, body and captions.
• Color palette: primary, secondary and accent colors plus background tones, with hex codes.
• Visual language: the details that make the app recognizably yours, such as thick outlines, hard shadows or diagonal hatching in a neo-brutalist style. Similarly, add pixel values for shadow offset and blur so Stitch outputs match screen to screen.
• Component conventions: button shapes, corner radius (or none, if you’re going hard-edged), and spacing units.

5. schema.md: What Does Your Data Look Like?

The schema doc describes every piece of data the app stores, so your vibe coding sessions never guess at field names. List:

• Collections and fields: every collection or table, every field, every type.
• Relationships: what references what. For example, a post document holds a userId, and a comments subcollection sits under each post.
• Structure decisions: in Firestore, note which collections are top-level and which are subcollections. That choice matters because it is expensive to change later and it shapes your Security Rules.
• Indexes: anything you’ll query, filter or sort by.

6. Implementation Plan: In What Order Should You Build?

The implementation plan turns your docs into a sequence. Include:

• Build order: what gets built first, second and third. A typical sequence runs auth → core data model → primary screen or feed → secondary features → polish.
• Dependencies: what must exist before what. For example, you can’t build comments until posts exist and auth is wired.
• Milestones: natural checkpoints, not necessarily tied to calendar dates.

Why it matters for vibe coding: this doc stops you from asking the AI to build the profile screen before auth exists. Instead, each session picks up exactly where the last one left off, so you don’t re-decide priorities every time you open the laptop.

7. tracker.md: Where Does the Build Stand Right Now?

A progress tracker is a simple status table: feature or screen, status (not started, in progress, done, blocked) and notes. Ideally, update it every session, even briefly. It’s the fastest way to re-orient yourself, or hand context to an AI, after a few days away from the project. For longer vibe coding projects, it doubles as your changelog.

Here’s a format that works well:

8. rules.md: What Should the AI Never Do?

The rules doc sets the boundaries for every coding session. Add:

• Coding conventions: naming, file structure and comment style.
• AI-behavior rules: instructions such as “don’t modify schema.md without flagging it,” “always check tracker.md before starting a new feature” and “ask before adding a new dependency.”
• Security non-negotiables: for example, “never write Firestore rules that default to allow” and “never hardcode API keys; always use environment variables.”

Why it comes last but matters most: you paste this doc into the system prompt or at the top of every coding session. It stops an enthusiastic AI from “helpfully” refactoring code you didn’t ask it to touch, or quietly loosening a security rule to make a feature work. To sharpen those instructions, read our guide on how to structure a prompt.

How Do the 8 Vibe Coding Documents Connect?

In short, each document feeds the next one:

1. PRD: what you’re building and why.
2. TRD: which tools you’ll use.
3. User journey: which screens, in what order.
4. design.md: how it looks.
5. schema.md: how the data looks.
6. Implementation plan: the build order.
7. tracker.md: live status, updated continuously.

rules.md sits alongside all of them. You reference it in every session, not just once.

Practical habit: keep all eight as real files in your project repo or a dedicated Drive folder, not buried in chat history with Claude or Stitch. The whole point is that they outlive any single chat session.

Vibe Coding Documentation FAQs

What is vibe coding?

Vibe coding is a way of building software by describing what you want in plain language and letting an AI model write the code. AI researcher Andrej Karpathy coined the term in February 2025.

Do I need a PRD before vibe coding a small app?

Yes. Even a one-page PRD gives the AI a clear problem, audience and v1 scope, which means fewer rebuilt screens and wasted prompts.

Which document should I write first for vibe coding?

Start with the PRD, because every other document, from the TRD to rules.md, depends on knowing what you’re building and for whom.

Where should I store my vibe coding documents?

Save them as markdown files in your project repo so your AI coding tool can read them directly. A shared Drive folder also works if you build in browser tools like Stitch or Google AI Studio.

About the Author

Vinita Mathreja

Vinita Mathreja is the founder of What The Web, where she covers artificial intelligence, emerging technologies, AI tools, and the evolving digital landscape. Her work focuses on making complex technological developments accessible to creators, professionals, and everyday users.

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