| name | vibe |
| description | Enter vibe mode — fast, gates-off exploration in a disposable worktree to generate breadth and signal, never shipped directly. Use when the user says /vibe, 'vibe this', 'explore fast, skip the gates', 'prototype N approaches', or wants throwaway iteration to learn the shape of a problem before building it for real. NOT for production work — that's quality mode (the default). |
/vibe — Enter vibe mode (with guardrails)
Vibe mode optimizes for breadth, speed, and information, not shippable code.
Generate real working artifacts fast, in a disposable branch, to learn the shape
of a problem — then throw them away and rebuild the good parts in quality mode.
This skill sets up that contract and arms the guardrails. See CLAUDE.md §14.
When to use / not use
- Use for discovery: prototype competing approaches, test a risky
architecture decision, generate N variants to compare, vibe an end-to-end
artifact to mine for references. Output is disposable signal.
- Do NOT use for anything meant to ship. Production work is quality mode
— the default — with TDD, the
code-review agent, and a human merge (§1
loop). If unsure which mode the work is, it's quality mode.
The contract (state this on entry)
- Gates off: skip code review, skip the PR/MR, minimal HITL. The agent
self-steers and comes back with something to show.
- Output is disposable: reference material and signal, not a shipping
candidate. Not promoted to production — the exit is a quality-mode rebuild.
- The human reads output, steers, and fails bad branches early — not
reviews every step.
Guardrails (set them up, don't just assert them)
-
Isolate first. Create/confirm a disposable worktree before any vibe work.
Never vibe in the primary checkout, never on main.
repo=$(basename "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)"); branch=vibe/<short-slug>
git worktree add "${WORKTREES_DIR:-$HOME/.worktrees}/$repo/$branch" -b "$branch"
For a single-file spike, at minimum cut a vibe/* branch. The
.claude/hooks/block-main-merge.sh hook (global §8) already makes
merge-to-main impossible — vibe mode does not loosen that.
-
No production side effects. No prod infra, secrets, external services,
shared databases, or anything with irreversible blast radius. Reversible/
sandboxed only.
-
Label it disposable (branch vibe/*, a note to the user) — not owned
code, won't ship as-is.
-
Never merge a vibe branch. It's read for signal and discarded.
Working in vibe mode
- Move fast. Generate options, variants, competing approaches. Expect
messiness; don't protect the first artifact.
- Techniques that fit: galleries (N whole variants, pick/combine),
studios (N variants along tuned knobs), observability dashboards /
debug toggles (build a reusable inspection surface into the app instead of
a one-off manual check — a favorite, highest-leverage move),
settings-toggles / endpoint-N (turn the debate into a switch), and
running one ticket as N lanes to compare.
- Steer continuously — read output, correct drift, kill bad branches early.
Vibe mode is fast exploration under a human's eye, not autopilot.
Exiting to quality mode (clean handoff)
- Ask: "Using what you know now, how would you reimplement this from scratch
for better quality?"
- Distill decisions the pass surfaced → tickets (
/ticket).
- Rebuild in quality mode: clean start, cherry-pick good code/tests/API-shapes/
edge-cases from the vibe branch as reference, review and verify each step.
- Discard the worktree once signal is harvested:
git worktree remove "${WORKTREES_DIR:-$HOME/.worktrees}/$repo/$branch" --force
Hard rules
- Quality mode is the default; vibe mode is explicit and temporary.
- Vibe work is isolated (worktree/
vibe/* branch), never main, never the
primary checkout.
- No production side effects.
- Vibe artifacts never ship directly — the exit is always a quality-mode
rebuild.
- Never merge a vibe branch.
