Vibe Coding
Building software by describing it to an AI: the group's standing rules (no logins, databases of people or payments unless a real developer reviews it), the tools in October 2026, and how to let someone edit a site Claude built.
On this page
"Vibe coding" means building an app or website by describing what you want to an AI and using what it produces, often without reading the code. Since late 2025 shluchim in the group have built dozens of small tools this way; the checked list is on Community-Built Chabad Apps.
It works well for small, single-purpose tools. It goes wrong when the app holds people's private information or money. The group learned both on the same Purim (see the Megillah app sprint).
The standing rules
Do not vibe-code any of these unless a real developer reviews the code before it goes live:
- Logins and user accounts. A member's March 2026 post-mortem ended: "Never release an AI-coded app with login functionality."
- A database of people. Donors, members, children, anyone's phone number or address.
- Payments. If you need to take money, send people to the hosted donation page you already use, so card details never touch your own code.
- Mission-critical email, such as receipts or anything that must arrive.
- Mass messaging from a personal WhatsApp number. See WhatsApp Automation.
For everything else (a raffle, a luach, a label maker, a learning tool, an event page that links to your real registration form) go ahead and build it.
The rules exist because an AI writes code that works on the screen in front of you. It does not reliably think about who else can reach the data. In April 2026 Supabase warned one member that tables in his project, donations among them, had their main access protection switched off. Nobody had noticed, because the app worked.
What a safe build looks like
- It runs in the browser and stores nothing. The Movers Referral Tool processes an NCOA file on your own computer, and berel.me's Label Studio keeps the mailing list in the browser.
- No account to create. The Megillah app and most berel.me tools work from a link.
- It shows vetted text instead of generating it. maamorim.app and dach.dev present text a person wrote or checked; AI helps find it.
- It plugs into a system that already works. An event page can link to your existing ChabadOne registration instead of collecting sign-ups itself.
Before building, two questions members asked each other in May and June 2026: does a ready-made service already do this for a few hundred dollars a year, and will anyone install an app when a text message already works? Maintaining your own app costs time every month (bugs, updates, broken integrations).
The tools, October 2026
Prices checked on each vendor's page on 2026-10-21. "Builders" host the app for you and suit beginners; "coding agents" work on real code you host yourself and are covered on The Builders Group.
| Tool | Type | Price | What the group says |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lovable | Builder | Free: 5 credits a day, up to 30 a month. Pro from $25/month (100 credits) | The usual first try; fast single-page apps and event sites. |
| Base44 | Builder | Free: 25 message credits a month. Paid from $16/month billed yearly | Quick connectors (email, calendar, WhatsApp voice notes) and fast event pages; also criticized from September 2026 as credit-hungry and pushing yearly plans. |
| Replit | Builder | Core $20/month ($18 billed yearly); a limited free mode | Used for a volunteer-delivery tracker and a meeting timer. When one member ran out of free credits, he asked Replit for a hand-off summary and moved the project to Lovable. |
| Bolt | Builder | Free: 1M tokens a month. Pro $18/month billed yearly | Similar to Lovable; less used in the group. |
| Claude Code | Coding agent | Included with Claude Pro ($20/month) | The group's main tool for anything beyond a prototype. |
| Codex | Coding agent | Included in ChatGPT plans, from Free up | Popular from May 2026 for debugging and a second opinion. |
In September 2026, members who ran out of Base44 credits before the month ended asked whether Claude Code or Codex would be cheaper. If you build often, compare: those come with a flat monthly plan that has usage limits, while the builders charge by the message or credit.
Letting someone edit a site Claude built
A site built with Claude Code is a folder of files on GitHub. To change a word you either ask Claude again or edit the file. In July 2026 a member asked for a free, simple way for office staff to change text and photos without touching code. Three answers came up.
| Option | What it is | Best when |
|---|---|---|
| Pages CMS | A free, open-source editor for a site stored on GitHub. You sign in with GitHub and give it access to one repository. | One person updates text and photos. The member who uses it called it "very basic": text, images and photo albums, but no moving sections around. GitHub only. |
| Sveltia CMS | A free, open-source editor that describes itself as the successor to Netlify CMS and Decap CMS. Works with GitHub, GitLab, Gitea and Forgejo. | You need more structure (events, staff pages, several editors) or already used Decap. |
| Talk the edits in | Tell Claude Code the changes by voice or text as they come up; it collects them and deploys in a batch. | You are the only editor and already work in Claude Code. One member prefers this to any editor. |
With either editor, every save becomes a change on GitHub, which triggers a new deploy. On Netlify's free plan each production deploy uses 15 of the 300 credits, so a busy week of small edits adds up; batching helps.
Drag-and-drop builders such as Wix and Squarespace are a different kind of tool. In an August 2026 debate, members noted that a vibe-coded site looks more polished but that drag-and-drop encourages staff to update it more often. One suggestion was a hand-built home page that embeds the event system you already use.
What changed in 2026
- The rules got written down. "No login, no database, no payments" came out of the Purim post-mortems in March 2026 and has been the group's answer ever since.
- Builders changed. Lovable now accepts an existing project uploaded as a ZIP file. Base44 went from praise to complaints about cost. Codex joined Claude Code as a common coding agent.
- Whole Chabad House sites. From July 2026 several shluchim rebuilt their sites with Claude Code, which raised the editing question above.
- A push-back on building for its own sake. A heavy builder in August 2026 criticized "people designing apps that no one needs," and said he builds one task at a time, when a real need comes up.
Open questions
- A Chabad House system that hundreds of shluchim can install without each one becoming a security risk. Proposed often; not built. See CRM Automation.
- Who keeps a tool running when the one person who built it is busy?
Related
- Building Web Apps with AI, the step-by-step version.
- The Builders Group and Its Coding Tools
- Lovable
- Privacy and Data
- Community-Built Chabad Apps