My Vibe Coding Stack in 2026

Every week someone asks me what tools I use. Here's the full stack — not what's trending on Twitter, but what I actually ship with every day.

My main driver. Claude Code is a CLI tool that lives in your terminal. You give it context about your project (via a CLAUDE.md file), and it writes, edits, and refactors code across your entire codebase.

Why it wins:

Context window — it can hold your entire project in memory
Tool use — it reads files, runs commands, searches code, all autonomously
CLAUDE.md — a single file that makes it understand your project like a teammate

I use Claude Code for 80% of my coding. The other 20% is reading its output and course-correcting.

Cursor (Secondary)

When I need to be more hands-on — debugging a tricky issue, understanding unfamiliar code — I switch to Cursor. The inline editing is great for surgical changes.

ChatGPT (Research)

When I need to think through architecture decisions or explore trade-offs, I'll have a conversation with ChatGPT. It's my rubber duck that talks back.

The Framework

Next.js + React + TypeScript

This is non-negotiable for me. Here's why:

AI agents know it deeply — React/Next.js has the largest training corpus. Claude writes better Next.js code than anything else.
Full-stack in one repo — API routes, server components, static generation. No separate backend to maintain.
Vercel deployment — push to main, it's live. Zero DevOps.
TypeScript — the AI makes fewer mistakes when types constrain its output.

// The AI writes better code when it has types to work with
interface PricingTier {
  name: string;
  price: number;
  features: string[];
  recommended?: boolean;
}

The Styling

Tailwind CSS

Not because it's trendy — because AI agents generate better Tailwind than traditional CSS. Utility classes are explicit, composable, and self-documenting. The agent doesn't have to maintain a separate stylesheet or worry about naming conventions.

// The AI can reason about this easily
<div className="flex items-center gap-4 rounded-lg bg-white p-6 shadow-sm">

The Database

Turso (libSQL) + Drizzle ORM

When I need a database (not every app does), this is the combo:

Turso — SQLite at the edge. Free tier is generous. No connection pooling headaches.
Drizzle — type-safe ORM that AI agents write fluently. Schema-as-code means the agent can read and modify your database schema directly.

The Deploy

Vercel

git push origin main and you're live. That's it. That's the deploy strategy.

For apps that need a backend beyond API routes, I'll reach for Railway or Fly.io. But 90% of my projects live entirely on Vercel.

The Workflow

Here's what a typical session looks like:

Open terminal in the project directory
Run Claude Code with a clear task: "Add a blog listing page with post cards, tag filtering, and pagination"
Review the output — read the code, check it makes sense
Test locally — bun run dev, click around, check edge cases
Push to main — Vercel auto-deploys
Repeat

The whole loop takes 10-30 minutes per feature. Some features take longer. Most take less.

What I Don't Use

Docker — unnecessary for most web apps deployed on Vercel/Railway
Kubernetes — if you need K8s, vibe coding isn't your bottleneck
Monorepo tools (Nx, Turborepo) — I ship single apps, not platform ecosystems
Testing frameworks (beyond Vitest) — I test in production with real users. Controversial, but it works at my scale.

The Meta-Point

The best vibe coding stack is the one your AI agent knows best. That's React/Next.js/Tailwind/TypeScript right now. When the AI gets better at other stacks, I'll switch. The tool serves the goal, and the goal is shipping.

Your stack should maximize the AI's effectiveness, not yours.

That's the mindset shift. You're not picking tools for your ergonomics anymore. You're picking tools for the agent's ergonomics. And right now, the TypeScript ecosystem wins by a mile.