svelte

• What I Actually Mean When I Say "Vibe Coding"

  Have you thought about what you actually mean when you tell someone you vibe code? The term gets thrown around a lot, but I think there’s a meaningful distinction worth spelling out. Here’s how I think about it.

  Vibe coding, to me, doesn’t mean you’re using an LLM because at this point, it’s hard to avoid using an LLM no matter what type of work you’re doing. The distinction isn’t about the tools, it’s about the intent and the stakes.

  Vibe Coding vs. Engineering Work

  To me, vibe coding is when I have a simple idea and I want to build a self-contained app that expresses that idea. There’s no spec, no requirements doc, no code review. Just an idea and the energy to make it real.

  Engineering work, whether that’s context engineering, spec-driven development, or the old-fashioned way; is when I’m working on open source or paid work. There’s structure, there are standards, and the code needs to hold up over time.

  Both are fun. But I take vibe coding less seriously than engineering work.

  Vibe coding is the creative playground. Engineering is the craft.

  My Setup

  All my vibe coded apps live in a single repository. The code isn’t public, but the results are. You can find all my ideas at logan.center.

  I have it set up so that every time I add a new folder, it automatically gets its own subdomain.

  I’m using Caddy for routing and deploying to Railway. I have an idea, create the app, and boom — it’s live.

  I would like to open source a template version of this setup so other people could deploy to something like Railway easily, but I haven’t gotten around to building that yet. One day.

  For my repository, I decided it would be fun to build everything in Svelte instead of React.

  That’s why you may have seen a bunch of posts from me lately about learning how Svelte works. It’s been fun because the framework stays out of your way and lets you move fast, which is exactly what you want when you’re chasing the vibe.

  So, for me, vibe coding is a specific thing: low stakes, high creativity, self-contained apps, and the freedom to just build without overthinking it.

  I mean I’m not crazy, I still have testing setup…

  Feb 24, 2026 / Programming / Vibe-coding / svelte

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• Why Svelte 5 Wants `let` Instead of `const` (And Why Your Linter Is Confused)

  If you’ve been working with Svelte 5 and a linter like Biome, you might have run into this sitauation:

  use const instead of let

  However, Svelte actually needs that let.

  Have you ever wondered why this is?

  Here is an attempt to explain it to you.

  Svelte 5’s reactivity model is different from the rest of the TypeScript world, and some of our tooling hasn’t quite caught up yet.

  The const Rule Everyone Knows

  In standard TypeScript and React, the prefer-const rule is a solid best practice.

  If you declare a variable and never reassign it, use const. It communicates intent clearly: this binding won’t change. You would think

  But there is confusion when it comes to objects that are defined as const.

  Let’s take a look at a React example:

  // React — const makes perfect sense here
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0);
  const handleClick = () => setCount(count + 1);
  

  count is a number (primitive). setCount is a function.

  Neither can modify itself so it makes sense to use const.

  Svelte 5 Plays by Different Rules

  Svelte 5 introduced runes — reactive primitives like $state(), $derived(), and $props() that bring fine-grained reactivity directly into JavaScript.

  Svelte compiler transforms these declarations into getters and setters behind the scenes.

  The value does get reassigned, even if your code looks like a simple variable.

  <script lang="ts">
    let count = $state(0);
  </script>
  
  <button onclick={() => count++}>
    Clicked {count} times
  </button>
  

  Biome Gets This Wrong

  But they are trying to make it right. Biome added experimental Svelte support in v2.3.0, but it has a significant limitation: it only analyzes the <script> block in isolation.

  It doesn’t see what happens in the template. So when Biome looks at this:

  <script lang="ts">
    let isOpen = $state(false);
  </script>
  
  <button onclick={() => isOpen = !isOpen}>
    Toggle
  </button>
  

  It only sees let isOpen = $state(false) and thinks: “this variable is never reassigned, use const.”

  It completely misses the isOpen = !isOpen happening in the template markup.

  If you run biome check --write, it will automatically change let to const and break your app.

  The Biome team has acknowledged this as an explicit limitation of their partial Svelte support.

  For now, the workaround is to either disable the useConst rule for Svelte files or add biome-ignore comments where needed.

  What About ESLint?

  The Svelte ESLint plugin community has proposed two new rules to handle this properly: svelte/rune-prefer-let (which recommends let for rune declarations) and a Svelte-aware svelte/prefer-const that understands reactive declarations. These would give you proper linting without the false positives.

  My Take

  Svelte 5’s runes are special and deserve their own way of handling variable declarations.

  React hooks are different.

  Svelte’s compiler rewrites your variable.

  I like Svelte.

  Please fix Biome.

  Don’t make me use eslint.

  Feb 17, 2026 / Programming / svelte / Typescript / Biome / Linting

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