Who Coined Agentic Engineering? The Origin Story
The term came from Andrej Karpathy. Here is the origin story and how it evolved from vibe coding to a structured engineering discipline.
Who coined the term?
Andrej Karpathy coined agentic engineering in mid-2025, following his earlier coinage of vibe coding. Where vibe coding describes one person with one AI, agentic engineering covers multi-agent systems where AI agents collaborate autonomously with defined roles and review gates. The term filled a gap as projects grew too complex for single-prompt workflows.
How did it evolve from vibe coding?
The evolution followed a clear progression: vibe coding (one AI, prompt-driven, simple) to multi-agent coding (several AIs with defined roles) to agentic engineering (structured orchestration with review gates and quality controls). Each stage adds reliability and scalability at the cost of simplicity. Most developers naturally graduate from vibe coding to agentic patterns as their projects grow in complexity.
Feb 2025: Karpathy coins vibe coding. Mid 2025: Karpathy coins agentic engineering. Late 2025: Community adopts both terms. 2026: Terms evolve beyond original definitions. The practical application matters more than the terminology used to describe it.
Karpathy coined both terms but the community uses them differently than intended. Vibe coding was supposed to include review. Agentic engineering was supposed to be simple. Both terms evolved. Do not get attached to original definitions. Use them as they are understood today in practice.
What is the difference between vibe coding and agentic engineering? Give me the origin, evolution, and practical application of each approach for modern development workflows.
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