How to Write Vibe Coding Prompts (+ a Cheat Sheet)

Here’s how to write vibe coding prompts that produce a real, deployable website instead of another purple-gradient template: name every decision the model would otherwise make for you — the stack, the business facts, every section on the page, the SEO, the accessibility floor, and a written list of things it may never do. That’s it. The prompt isn’t a magic incantation. It’s a brief, and a good brief leaves nothing important to a guess.

We write these for a living — a whole library of them, plus the ones we run on client builds — so we’ve watched the same failure a few hundred times. The prompt reads fine. The site comes back generic. The reason is almost never the model; it’s that the prompt described a vibe and skipped the decisions. A model handed a vibe fills the gaps with the statistical average of everything it trained on, which is how every coffee shop ends up with the same coffee-shop site.

This is the hands-on version: the anatomy of a vibe coding prompt that ships, block by block, plus a copy-paste skeleton at the end you can actually reuse. If you want the argument for why our website prompts run 12,000 characters, that’s a separate read. This one teaches you to write your own.

What makes a vibe coding prompt actually ship a website?

A prompt that ships carries seven kinds of information, and every one exists to take a decision away from the model. Skip a block and you don’t get a blank — you get the model’s default, which is the same default a million other prompts got. Here’s the whole anatomy in one view before we walk each block.

Notice the pattern: each block is a spot where the model would otherwise improvise, and writing a prompt is the work of improvising less than it does. Order matters too — constraints first, facts second, taste third — the model reads top to bottom and anchors hardest on what it sees early.

Pin the stack and the business facts before anything visual

Two blocks do the unglamorous work, and they go first. The first is the stack: tell the model exactly what to build with and, just as important, what not to. For most small-business sites that’s plain HTML, one CSS file, and a little vanilla JavaScript, no build step, with every file named up front. Say that, and the model can’t wander off and hand you a framework you now have to learn how to host. On WordPress, pin the theme approach and forbid the page builder you don’t want baked in. Not sure which lane you’re in? Our pillar on how to vibe code a website walks the routes; this post assumes you’ve picked one and are sitting down to write the prompt.

The second block is the one only you can fill: the business facts. Name, the three things you actually sell (most profitable first), the neighborhood or service area, hours, a real phone and email, and the one thing no competitor has. This is maybe three hundred characters of the whole prompt, and it’s what makes the site yours instead of a template with your logo on top. One rule we put in every prompt: if you don’t know a fact, leave it blank and flag it — never invent a review, an award, or a founding year. A model will happily write “serving Brooklyn since 1998,” and you don’t want to learn that from a customer.

Give real design direction, not a mood board of adjectives

“Clean, modern, professional” means nothing — those three words describe the default the model was already going to ship. Design direction that changes the output is specific: actual hex codes (a primary, an accent, an ink color for text, a background), two named fonts with a system fallback so the page never stalls on a download, and a register for the writing. Register is the sneaky-important one. “Plainspoken, a little dry, no hype” produces different copy than “warm and welcoming,” and both beat leaving it blank, which reliably gets you “Welcome to” and “passionate” in the first sentence.

One move that works: give the model a single reference feeling instead of a mood board. “Read like a good menu, not a car ad.” “Look like a law office that answers its phone, not a startup.” A model acts on one clear comparison faster than on ten adjectives pulling in different directions. That’s the difference between describing a vibe and directing one — and if the line between vibe coding and old-school prompt phrasing interests you, we pull it apart in vibe coding vs prompt engineering.

Name every section from the top of the page to the footer

This block does the most work and gets skipped the hardest, because it’s tedious. Walk the page top to bottom and name every section in the order it appears, each with its layout and behavior — not its mood. A hero isn’t “eye-catching”; it’s an H1 that makes one concrete promise in nine words or fewer, a sub-line that names what you do and where, and exactly one button pointed at one anchor. Do that for the nav, hero, services strip, about block, contact section, and footer. If you can’t say what a section is for, cut it. Five sections that each earn their place beat twelve that don’t.

Spec behavior, not just presence. “A gallery” invites a broken carousel; “a three-across image grid that stacks to one column on phones, no autoplay, no lightbox unless I ask for one” gets you the thing you pictured. The more precisely you name each section, the less the model reaches for its favorite layout — and reaching for that layout is exactly why so many free vibe coding prompts that skip this step come back looking like siblings.

Ask for SEO, schema, and accessibility out loud

Models won’t add any of this unless you say so, because a demo doesn’t need it and the model is optimizing to look finished. So say so, in the prompt. On the SEO side: a unique title tag and meta description, one H1 with a logical heading order beneath it, human-readable slugs, and descriptive alt text with width and height on every image. On the structured-data side, ask for the JSON-LD your business actually is — LocalBusiness or Organization, plus Service or Product — filled with the real facts from your details block, not placeholders. That’s what gets a small site read by both Google and the AI engines; we keep the full run-down in SEO for vibe coded websites.

Accessibility is the same deal: state the floor or you won’t get one. A 4.5:1 contrast minimum, visible focus states, a label tied to every form field, touch targets big enough for a thumb, and respect for reduced-motion so the animation doesn’t nauseate anyone. None of it is exotic, and asking up front is far cheaper than retrofitting after the build. A vibe coded site nobody can read on a phone in daylight isn’t finished; it’s a screenshot.

Write the never-do list

This is the crew’s favorite block, and the one readers tell us they now paste into everything. It’s a plain list of things the model may not do, and every line earns its spot after you watch a model do exactly that thing. Ours forbids emoji standing in for icons (inline SVG only), lorem ipsum anywhere (write plausible copy for this business and flag guesses with an HTML comment), headlines that open with “Welcome to,” the words “passionate” and “seamless,” and three identical cards arranged for symmetry rather than because you have three real things to say.

Two anti-patterns matter more than the rest, because they ship broken sites, not just bland ones. First: no fake form. A contact form wired to nothing looks perfect and silently drops every lead — tell the model to wire it to a real endpoint or a mailto, or mark it clearly as a placeholder. Second: no invented proof. No fake testimonials, no made-up star ratings, no client counts you can’t stand behind. The never-do list is where you encode every mistake you’ve already made once, so the model never makes it for you again.

Copy this vibe coding prompts cheat sheet

Here’s the whole anatomy as a skeleton you can paste into a text file and fill in. Everything in [BRACKETS] is a slot for your specifics; everything else is the scaffolding that handles the forty decisions you didn’t know you were making. It’s deliberately compact — a real one runs longer once each section is spelled out — but this is the shape of every prompt we write. Keep it as your vibe coding prompts cheat sheet and grow the never-do list every time an output annoys you.

GOAL: Build a complete, deployable [STATIC HTML | WORDPRESS] website for
[BUSINESS NAME]. Ship production-ready code, not a demo. Deliver every file.

1) STACK & CONSTRAINTS
- Build with: [plain HTML5 + ONE css file + vanilla JS, no build step
  | WordPress classic theme, no page builder]
- Name the files up front: [index.html, styles.css, script.js]
- System-font fallback stack. No framework unless I named one above.

2) BUSINESS FACTS (the part only I know)
- Name: [BUSINESS NAME]
- We sell: [THING 1, THING 2, THING 3]  (most profitable first)
- Area: [NEIGHBORHOOD, CITY]   Hours: [HOURS]
- Contact: [REAL PHONE], [REAL EMAIL]
- Only-we-have-it: [DIFFERENTIATOR]
- If you don't know a fact, leave it blank and flag it. Invent nothing.

3) DESIGN DIRECTION
- Palette: [#PRIMARY] [#ACCENT] [#INK] [#BG]
- Type: headings [FONT], body [FONT], + system fallback
- Register: [e.g. plainspoken, a little dry, no hype]
- Reference feeling: [e.g. "a good menu, not a car ad"]

4) SECTIONS (build top to bottom, in this order)
- NAV: [logo left, links, one button right]
- HERO: H1 = one concrete promise, 9 words max, never "Welcome to";
  sub-line = [what you do + where]; ONE button to #[anchor]
- [SERVICES / PROOF / ABOUT / GALLERY ...]: [layout + behavior, not mood]
- CONTACT: [form fields] wired to [REAL ENDPOINT | mailto]
- FOOTER: [name, address, phone, hours, real links]

5) SEO & SCHEMA (write these in, don't wait to be asked)
- Unique <title> [60 chars max] + meta description [150-158 chars]
- One <h1>; logical <h2>/<h3> order; human-readable slugs
- alt text + width/height on every image
- JSON-LD: [LocalBusiness | Organization] + [Service | Product],
  filled with the real facts above

6) ACCESSIBILITY (non-negotiable)
- 4.5:1 text contrast min; visible focus states
- label tied to every form field; touch targets 44px or larger
- keyboard-only usable; honor prefers-reduced-motion

7) NEVER DO
- no emoji as icons (inline SVG only)
- no lorem ipsum (write real copy for THIS business; flag guesses in comments)
- no "Welcome to", no "passionate", no "seamless"
- no three identical cards for symmetry
- no form wired to nothing; no invented reviews, ratings, or numbers
- no JavaScript for anything CSS can do

DELIVER: every file, complete, ready to open in a browser [or drop into WordPress].

Fill the brackets, feed the whole thing to the model in one shot, and you start from ninety percent done instead of from zero. The facts are yours; the structure is the part that keeps the model honest.

Iterate with one surgical follow-up at a time

No prompt lands perfect, and that’s fine — iteration is part of the method, not a sign you got it wrong. The rule is to fix with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. When something’s off, name the one thing and change only that: “the nav overlaps the logo below 400 pixels, fix only that spacing.” Don’t re-roll the entire site and hope; you’ll lose the parts that were already right and spend the afternoon chasing a version you liked two prompts ago. Small, targeted follow-ups compound. Whole re-generations just reset the dice.

And know when writing your own isn’t worth it. If you’d rather not spend the afternoon, the library has forty ready to fill in — grab a WordPress portfolio prompt and skip the blank page. Not sure which to grab? We ranked the ones that ship in the best vibe coding prompts. Or skip the build: we ship a vibe coded static site for $2,800 flat in three to five days, a WordPress build for $5,800 flat in seven to ten, code on GitHub. Tell us what you’re building and we’ll say which lane is cheapest — even when the honest answer is “write the prompt yourself, here’s the skeleton.”

Frequently asked questions

What should a vibe coding prompt include?

Seven blocks: the tech stack and constraints, your real business facts, design direction (hex colors, two fonts, a tone), a section-by-section spec of the page in order, explicit SEO and schema requests, an accessibility floor, and a never-do list. Miss one and the model fills it with its default. The cheat sheet above lays all seven out as fill-in-the-blank slots you can copy today.

How long should a vibe coding prompt be?

As long as it takes to cover every decision, which for a full website usually lands in the multi-thousand-character range — ours run about 12,000. Length isn’t the goal, though; density is. Characters have to be decisions, not adjectives. A tight 2,000-character prompt that specs every section beats an 8,000-character pile of moods every time.

Do I need a different prompt for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini?

No. A real spec is model-agnostic on purpose — constraints and section specs read the same everywhere, so one prompt holds up across the big three. Differences show up in taste, not structure: in our testing Claude writes the strongest copy out of the box, Gemini takes more visual risks, and ChatGPT plays it safest. A round of follow-ups closes the gap on any of them.

Can I just copy a ready-made prompt instead of writing my own?

Absolutely, and most people should start there. Our free library has forty of these built and tested, each with bracketed slots for your facts — ten to fifteen minutes to fill in versus an afternoon from scratch. Learn the anatomy here so you can judge and edit one, then grab the closest match.

Why does the AI keep ignoring parts of my prompt?

Usually because the prompt contradicts itself or buries the instruction. Models anchor on what they read first and lose the thread when two lines disagree, so keep it in clean, non-overlapping sections and put the hard constraints up top. If it still skips something, don’t argue with the whole prompt — call out the one missed item in a short follow-up and ask for that change only.