When things break
The five-step ladder out of any hole an agent digs.
Things will break. This is fine, because it breaks for professionals too, which is why the pros' recovery ladder is worth stealing. Work it top to bottom; most problems die on the first rung.
- 1
Paste the whole error. The full wall of red text, straight into chat, no commentary, not a summary of it. This has been the canonical move since Karpathy's original vibe-coding post, and it still fixes most things on the first try.
- 2
Start a fresh chat. Describe the problem cleanly from zero. Half the time the bug isn't in your code, it's in a conversation that's gotten too foggy to think straight.
- 3
Demand a diagnosis before a cure. “Add logging, find the root cause, and explain it to me before changing any code.” This snaps an agent out of guess-and-check mode, where it burns your time and tokens.
- 4
Roll back and take a smaller step. Return to your last checkpoint (the next section makes these) and re-approach with a smaller ask. A big change that broke is two small changes, one of which works.
- 5
Get a second opinion. Different model, or different agent entirely. Models have different blind spots, so what stumps one is often obvious to another. This is the honest reason regulars keep two agents installed.
Never let an agent flail twice at the same wall. If attempt two didn't work, attempt three won't either, so climb the ladder instead.
AI Clubhouse · Vibe Coding Guide