Vibe refactoring is 50% of vibe coding

This module assumes you have already launched the game locally, by following the setup instructions.

In previous modules we:

Now it's time to explore a hidden truth about vibe coding. If at least half of your prompts aren't "vibe refactors" you are probably messing up.

Understand the problem

AI is very good at using example context to implement new solutions. Unfortunately, this tends to lead to a lot of duplicated code. In the previous module we started looking at the "E" prompt. It's time to take an even closer look.

Try a prompt like:

Where is the interact prompt implemented in the components?

You should see that Kiro locates multiple copies of the interact prompt:

The interact prompt is consistently implemented across multiple interactive game objects (Computer, Workbench, Chest, Garbage, GameItem, PullLever, Dispenser)

If you open these files: Computer.vue, Workbench.vue, Chest.vue, etc you will notice that each component has a very similar implemention of the interact prompt with similar CSS.

But then if you move the ghost around the game play area, you will also notice subtle differences. For example, the size of the pull lever's interact prompt is slightly different from the size of the workbench interact prompt.

We can improve the code by deduplicating a repeated pattern is a lot of duplication here, so this would be much better if we refactored the interact prompt as a single component shared by all these components.

Do a refactor

Let's ask Kiro to refactor this. Open a file that contains an "E" prompt such as "Chest.vue". Then try a prompt like:

I want to DRY the "interact-prompt" into a separate component
with standardized styles, reused across my components

Tip

Kiro, and other AI enabled IDE's, use your currently open files as context. Consider opening relevant files prior to sending a prompt.

Verify the results

Kiro should discover all the components that have an "interact-prompt" element and refactor them to make use of a new shared component instead:

Things to check for:

The original implementation has interact prompts with different locations relative to the parent component: above, left, right, etc. Did that get lost in the refactor?
There were two diffrent approaches to ensuring that the interact prompts text stayed at an appropriate size, no matter what the screen dimension was. Which approach, if any, did the AI model choose?

Tip

Trust, but also verify. While AI models can do a fantastic job at refactoring, its always necessary to double check generated code to ensure that functionality did not degrade during that refactor.

Find more to do

Try asking Kiro:

Look through my components. Do you see any things that should
be refactored or opportunities to implement best practices?

Tip

AI models are trained via reinforcement learning to be friendly and compliant. Therefore a model will rarely, if ever, initiate criticism or question what you ask it to do. Models will do as you ask, even if what you asked was flawed.

However, you can still use AI as a code reviewer or critic by explictly asking it to tell you what it sees wrong or in need of improvement.

In this module you have learned two key concepts:

Vibe coding works, but just like regular coding, it requires regular refactors. Do "vibe refactoring" as well.
AI won't directly contradict you or push back on your asks, but that doesn't it isn't capable of seeing the mistakes. You just need to ask it to double check the work.

Let's move on to the next task:

Using specification for complex work

Page updated: June 18, 2025

Fixing an interactions bug across several files

Using specifications for complex work