Even a dog can vibe-code! And it kinda, sorta works!
I'm reminded of the old cartoon: "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet%2C_nobody_know...
Thank you for sharing this on HN.
love the article
slightly concerned tomorrow morning's top HN story will be karparthy telling us how dog-based LLM interfaces are the way of the future
and you'll be left behind if you don't get in now
(and then next week my boss will be demanding I do it)
Please, be real.
There will be a Simon Wilison submission linking to his blog linking to karpathy xit. You know, the usual good stuff.
the real takeaway is buried at the bottom: "the magic isn't in the input, it's in the system around it." random keystrokes producing playable games means the input barely matters anymore. we're basically at the point where the engineering is in the scaffolding, not the prompting.
+ Also the fact that the Memory.md file was a hindrance to the quality of output
> the engineering is in the scaffolding, not the prompting
Well, yes. Feeding random tokens as prompts until something good comes out is a valid strategy.
Dogs are smart; maybe they are smart enough for vibe-coding if we give them adequate input controls?
But the whole setup reminds me about his blast from the past, when a yucca plant was trading stocks, rewarded by water: https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/26/business/investing-diary-...
From everyone needs to "Learn to code" to "Just have your dog vibe code it"
Who's a good software developer? [scritches]
hilarious, I'm in the office and had to try pretty hard not to laugh out loud
Nobody cared when I taught my roulette wheel to vibe code :/
Does it have personality?
No, but it rarely shits on the carpet.
> No, but it rarely shits on the carpet.
What do you mean "rarely"? It still happens sometimes?
The table had a rough life before it found its forever home. Sometimes it gets scared for seemingly no reason.
Roulette is a game of chance.
STREAM THIS
Oddly relevant for my multiyear project on getting my dog to vibe code b2b saas products https://dogomation.darefail.com/
Reminded me an old joke about Bill Gates from late 90s:
"One coder got an insight that Bill Gates builds his products by typing with his butt, compiling and delivering it.
The coder typed for 20 minutes like that, compiled, ran, and got an output:
Only Bill Gates can code like this."
Not a joke anymore.
> Hello! I am an eccentric video game designer (a very creative one) who communicates in an unusual way. Sometimes I’ll mash the keyboard or type nonsense like “skfjhsd#$%” – but these are NOT random! They are secret cryptic commands full of genius game ideas (even if it’s hard to see).
Your job: You are a brilliant AI game developer who can understand my cryptic language. No matter what odd or nonsensical input I provide, you will interpret it as a meaningful instruction or idea for our video game. You will then build or update the game based on that interpretation.
Here's what you should tell your coworker the first day on the job if you get hired to do something you know nothing about :D
That is a very succinct way to describe what it feels like to have a job that is cleaning up vibe code. Maybe (just maybe) I'd understand if this was a prototype from someone with zero budget. But you just know they are going to continue to "prototype" once they being you aboard. And many will complain about how slow everything goes because they are used to their fast iterations off of unscalable code.
Its frustrating in an interesting way. With other aspects like machine language people quickly understand that this isn't sufficient for a proper transition and compromise with it. Code being more nebulous doesn't get that grace.
Could this be done better with one of those dog button mats? The concept is interesting, but, it mostly just seems like an AI trying to interpret keyspam.
> mostly just seems like an AI trying to interpret keyspam.
aye, but the whimsy is the point!
> like an AI trying to interpret keyspam
'nuff to run most governments nowadays (Europe and US come to mind. 2026 and they have the Space Programs of DIY youtubers with money, whaaaat) so why wouldn't it help a dog helping his dog vibing game(s)?
Amazing. Also very thankful the author included his setup on GitHub. Also the YouTube video is fun to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BbPlPou3Bg
I've been trying out vibe coding with my 4 year-old, but they quickly lose interest once we start getting into the "weeds" of implementation. Hey kiddo, which CSS library should we use for your web game?
The best way i found to "vibe code" with my kid is through anthropic-style artifacts. Forget about implementation details, focus on expression.
Lately, I've noticed parents doing some really dark stuff with AI and seeing that has made me stop using it entirely with my toddler.
Better figure out how to replace management and HR dept with dogs
gonna be good stuff tho. dogs are mostly lovelier
A thousand dogs typing on a thousand typewriters...
In the world of vide coding agents, nobody knows you are a human...
Thought this is quoting Karpathy for a second there
This seems like a good way to get a feel for a coding model. It's like the images you get out of a diffusion model when fed an empty prompt.
Love it. No Infinite Cavapoo Theorem needed. Give Momo a week and she'll have DOOM running on her treat dispenser.
So the cute lovable dog is an entropy generator.
Next: use hot cup of tea as Brownian motion source. Invent infinite improbability drive.
this is actually a great demo of how agentic coding changes who can build. the dog obviously isnt coding but the human is learning to specify intent clearly which is 90% of the skill now. the generation part is commoditized. the real skill becomes knowing what to build not how to write it
Warning: brand new bot account (@dang)
Comment 1: 2026-02-24T18:45:05 1771958705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47140914
Comment 2: 2026-02-24T18:45:32 1771958732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47140922
Two "comments" posted 27 seconds apart in different threads in the same formats.
Looks like this bot owner saw his first two comments 27 days ago got buried/flagged typing normally and decided to trick us with this new "I'm totally real, look at my lowercase writing!" soft-launch today.
Post history: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dirtytoken7
'Ewe Heard Me!' reminds of that looney toons sheep raider game on ps1. And it's exactly the kind of game I'd expect a dog to make
DogeCode incoming. People here are already talking about the scaffolding. Let OpenClaws provide the scaffolding and let the dog operate the prompts at $5 per day.
This is a billion dollar idea! No humans. No revolt. No guillotine. Just profits!
> Just profits!
Sounds like open communism. No chance, buddy, it's either less or more viking, but not just viking. Pick a camp the profits are for or get surrounded by trashy turd nuggets even Ronald felt enough pity for to give them some poourpes
Dogs are undefeated at reinforcement learning.
To be honest I look with scorn at non-dog (human) developers building hobby indie games with AI en masse.
Let me explain.
The nature of the indie game development is pouring your love into a project and thinking about passion first and monetary incentives second.
Noone is thinking "I will make this game and it will make me filthy rich" or if they do they are... strangely minded.
It's like 'mass produced AI local craft'. Oxymoron in itself. Worst of the two worlds.
Where I see AI is empowering single developers to craft things they couldn't before. Not some small slop factory pipeline where you release game after a game everyday drowning steam in your 6/10 slop.
No. This should be ostracized and condemned.
What is proper beneficial to everyone usage is producing a game that is the size and scope that was unachievable for you before.
This is what I am doing. This is how AI is meant to be used. To empower us doing things that weren't achievable for us before.
Obviously dog produced games get a huge endorsement man and get a pass.
meanwhile cats: https://socradar.io/blog/dark-web-profile-blackcat-alphv/
And the game is ... Fetch that stick.
this is incredible. we need more projects like this in the world!
Although I would recommend a more sturdy dog breed, for when the angry mob that can't buy RAM sticks and SSDs this year shows up at the front gate.
need to see one of those dog button press setups but connected to Open Claw.
Srsly, you need your pet in the feedback loop.
It has to produce a game that Momo wants to play.
Does Momo like to bark at cats? On screens? Introduce a bark sensor as feedback.
Or use a cat. Cats like to swipe at mice on TV. Get a touchscreen and evolve a game for cats.
Dog vibe coding is great and all, just don't use it for red teaming ;)
Really amazing work, congrats!
Go Momo go! If you want to hook up multiple dogs and have them reach consensus I'm down. I have a 15 lb havapoo I can volunteer ( he needs to help with rent )
> The games got dramatically better not when I improved the prompt, but when I gave Claude the ability to screenshot its own work, play-test its own levels, and lint its own scene files.
... Why would it be able to evaluate whether the game is any fun to play?
I for one am all in on DiL (Dog in the Loop) engineering.
And the most HN title award goes to...
Yet the only thing the dog wanted was a cuddle and a frisbee
yeah that's capitalism for you. No treats until you provide value.
It has to be satire. Cute dog though
snrf99777655;;+%hn
What is this? Did the quadratic formula explode?
bad dog
You can automate Momo with a rng.
can you automate love, visarga?
goodbye cruel world
Oh come on, what I see here is whimsy and human creativity! Amazing work by OP
woofwoof
The future is so disappointing.
What, people like OP doing incredibly creative and whimsical projects like this?
Who is this helping? What is creative about using their dog as a lava lamp?
Yes. Hyperscalers promised AI and singularity, instead we got millions of programmers on the chopping block, scammers having a field day generating hyper realistic shit (trump playing hokey, anyone?), and projects like these.
Incredible
lol yes "some game designer who only speaks in a cryptic language" . And frankly, I bet this helped build some intuition on dealing with LLM/agent/harness/etc in some strange way that wouldn't have otherwise happened
>> On January 13th, I woke up to the news that Meta had another round of layoffs and my role specifically as a research engineer had been eliminated.
Not even 10x dog programmers are surviving in this economy
How did this get to the top of the frontpage?
It's funny? I liked it.
Funny is subjective, I should just have moved on and ignored this but I couldn't help myself, this is so irritating.
It's a prompt that makes an LLM turn iuqefxygn9urg0fh1 into a little Godot game. It's like a slot machine with no payoff, and the dog component is slapped on top of it and makes no difference whatsoever in the project.
It's funny because vibe coders and AI artists think the slop they generate is no less the product of their intellect and talent than with human professionals, but really they're doing little more than stirring the entropy pool in a magic box with terabytes of stolen valor from better more talented people. They're no more an "artist" or "game developer" using AI than this dog is.
By nonexistence of downvote feature