For years, I was trapped in a cycle of ambitious beginnings and disappointing endings. My GitHub repository had become a digital graveyard of half-completed projects—enthusiastic starts abandoned at the first sign of a significant challenge. But over the past few months, something remarkable has happened: I’m actually finishing what I start, and the catalyst wasn’t a new productivity system or time management technique. It was AI. A Little Background Before diving into my productivity transformation, it helps to understand where I’m coming from.

Over the past few months, I’ve been on a journey to find the perfect code editor that balances excellent developer experience with the productivity boost of AI assistance. This exploration came after I had already spent almost two years using VS Code, which I adopted after ditching Emacs and Neovim in search of a more modern editing experience. My latest search led me through several modern editors, primarily those in the VSCodium family, with some interesting detours along the way.

We’ve all been there: headphones on, music pumping, fingers flying across the keyboard, lost in the “flow” with your favorite AI agent. This, my friends, is vibe coding. It’s when you’re in the zone, seemingly effortlessly producing code. It’s the idea that you can create great software simply by immersing yourself in the feeling of coding, trusting your intuition and riding the wave of inspiration. But lately, I’ve realized that for me, at least, the vibe is…off.