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What Dex Horthy thinks about vibe coding

@dex-horthy · 26 positions · 0 changes of mind

Founder of the agent company HumanLayer, author of the 12-factor agents principles, and the engineer who put the name "context engineering" on the practice.

Dex Horthy did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

3 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Dex Horthy has said — not written or endorsed by them.

3 positions so far — this page is not yet offered to search engines.

  1. Our readingShip for three to six months with nobody reading the code and the codebase gets so bad that starting over is easier than fixing it — we ran a lights-off software factory and shut it down.

    Their wordsWe tried this. We built a lights off software factory in July of 2025 and by November we had shut it down. I think it takes about three to six months of you shipping all the time with nobody reading the code before you realize like, wow, this is getting way worse and it's easier to start over than it is to fix it.

    ↗Context engineering with Dex Horthyyoutube.com 9th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  3. Our readingIt is no longer worth not reading the code in exchange for the occasional two-week hand fix, because the volume of code we can now generate has gone up ten to a hundred times.

    Their wordsAnd uh it's still worth it's still worth not reading the code for most of the time at the cost of every once in a while I'm going to have to spend two weeks fixing an issue by hand. And I don't believe that anymore because I think the amount of code we're able to write now is actually like 10xed or 100xed and I think the problem's just getting worse.

    ↗Context engineering with Dex Horthyyoutube.com 12th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  5. Our readingIf you want loop engineering, build one loop at a time and keep them small: every part of the agentic-factory playbook is good advice except the part where you stop reading the code.

    Their wordsif you want to do loops engineering, you should build one loop at a time and you should keep them small and contained. Basically, I think everything except stop reading the code is really good advice.

    ↗Context engineering with Dex Horthyyoutube.com 15th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting