What Is a Vibe Code Audit? (And Do You Need One?)
Everything you need to know about security audits for AI-generated apps and when you need one.
If you have built an application using an AI coding tool — Cursor, Bolt, Lovable, Replit, or even ChatGPT — you have been vibe coding. The term describes a new way of building software where you describe what you want in natural language and an AI writes the code for you. You guide the direction. The AI handles the implementation.
It is an extraordinarily productive way to build. Solo founders are shipping complete SaaS products in days rather than months. The barrier to building software has never been lower.
But there is a catch: the AI writes code that works, not code that is secure.
Why AI-Generated Code Has Security Problems
AI coding tools are trained to be helpful. When you ask for a login system, they give you a login system. When you ask for an API, they give you an API. The code compiles. It runs. It does what you asked.
What it does not do is defend itself.
Security is largely about the things you add to code that are not part of the core feature: input validation, rate limiting, authorization checks, secure session management, proper error handling, security headers. These are invisible to the user. They do not make the demo more impressive. And AI tools consistently deprioritise them because they are not what you asked for.
The result is applications that look finished but are missing the defensive layers that protect real user data in production.
This is not about AI tools being bad at coding. They are remarkably good at coding. The issue is that security requires a threat-modelling mindset that current AI tools do not possess. They optimise for making things work, not for thinking about how things could be attacked.
What Is a Vibe Code Audit?
A vibe code audit is a security review specifically designed for applications built with AI coding tools. It is not a generic penetration test or a compliance checkbox exercise. It is a focused examination of the specific classes of vulnerability that AI tools introduce into codebases.
We know what AI tools get wrong because we have audited dozens of AI-built applications. The patterns are remarkably consistent across different tools and different types of application. This means we can audit efficiently, focusing on the areas where vulnerabilities are most likely to exist.
What a Vibe Code Audit Covers
A typical audit covers six key areas:
Authentication and session management. We verify that your login flow, password handling, token generation, and session management are secure. This includes checking for authentication bypasses, weak token generation, missing expiration, and session fixation vulnerabilities.
Authorization and access control. We test whether users can access data or perform actions they should not be able to. This means attempting to access other users’ data, escalate privileges, and bypass role-based restrictions. In apps with team or multi-tenant features, this is where the most critical vulnerabilities tend to live.
API security. Every API endpoint is reviewed for input validation, rate limiting, proper error handling, and correct HTTP method enforcement. We test for injection attacks, mass assignment, and business logic flaws.
Database security. We review your database configuration, access controls, and query patterns. For Supabase users, this means a thorough review of Row Level Security policies. For apps using ORMs, we check for injection risks and overly permissive queries.
Secrets and environment configuration. We verify that API keys, database credentials, and other secrets are properly managed and not exposed in client-side code, version control, or build outputs.
Infrastructure and deployment. We review your hosting configuration, security headers, TLS setup, and any serverless function configurations for common misconfigurations.
Who Needs a Vibe Code Audit?
We work with three types of clients, and the urgency differs for each.
The Solo Founder Ready to Launch
You have built your SaaS product with Cursor or Bolt. You have paying customers waiting, or you are about to start marketing. You are a capable developer or a technically minded founder, but security is not your speciality.
You need an audit before launch. Not because your code is bad, but because there are classes of vulnerability that you will not notice by testing your application normally. Your app works perfectly when you use it as intended. The problem is what happens when someone uses it in ways you did not intend.
The Funded Startup With Users
You have raised money. You have users. You have data. You built fast using AI tools to hit your milestones, and now you need to make sure you are not sitting on a liability. Your investors may also be asking about security posture, and enterprise customers will require it.
You need an audit as a matter of due diligence. A breach at this stage does not just cost money — it kills trust, and trust is the only thing an early-stage startup has.
The Agency or Freelancer
You build applications for clients using AI tools. Your clients trust you to deliver production-ready code. If that code has vulnerabilities, you are the one on the hook.
You need an audit as quality assurance. Having a third-party security review on each project protects your clients and protects your reputation.
What You Get in the Report
Our audit report is not a generic scanner output. It is a detailed, prioritised document written for your specific application. Each report includes:
An executive summary that non-technical stakeholders can understand. This covers the overall security posture, the highest-risk findings, and a clear recommendation on whether the application is ready for production.
Detailed vulnerability findings with severity ratings (critical, high, medium, low), clear descriptions of the risk, steps to reproduce each issue, and specific remediation guidance with code examples where applicable.
A prioritised remediation plan that tells you exactly what to fix first. We order findings by risk and effort so you can address the most critical issues immediately and plan the rest over time.
Architecture recommendations for any structural changes that would improve your security posture. Sometimes the fix is not a code change but a design change, and we will tell you when that is the case.
How It Differs From a Traditional Pentest
Traditional penetration tests are designed for mature applications with established security programmes. They are expensive (typically thousands of pounds), slow (weeks to months), and they assume a baseline level of security is already in place.
A vibe code audit is designed for the reality of AI-generated applications. The engagement is faster because we know exactly where to look. The report is more actionable because it is tailored to the kinds of issues AI tools create. And the pricing is structured for solo founders and early-stage startups, not enterprise security budgets.
The goal is not to produce a compliance document. The goal is to find the vulnerabilities that will get you breached and give you clear instructions to fix them.
Not sure whether you need an audit? Here is a simple test: if your application stores user data and you have not had a security professional review the code, you need an audit. The question is not whether vulnerabilities exist — it is how many and how severe.
Getting Started
If you want to understand the kinds of issues we look for, start with our Vibe Coding Security Checklist. Work through it on your own codebase. If you find issues — or if you want certainty that you have not missed anything — we are here to help.
You can see our audit packages and how the process works on our pricing page. Most audits are completed within 48-72 hours, and every report comes with a follow-up call to walk through the findings.
