How to clean up vibe-coded apps: the tidy-up pass AI-built repos never get

Code generators optimise for the next working answer, not for the shape of the codebase. Asked to add a feature, they add it to the file they're already in, so files grow without limit. Asked for similar logic twice, they write it twice, so duplication spreads. Debugging sessions leave console.logs, abandoned approaches leave commented-out blocks, and nobody ever circles back, because circling back was never part of the prompt.

None of this is hypothetical: the typical vibe-coded repo has one file holding a third of the app, the same fetch-and-handle block pasted into four components, a march of stale TODOs, and tabs fighting spaces across the codebase. Each item is small. Together they're why the fifth week of a vibe-coded project feels so much slower than the first.

Start with structure, because it makes every later step easier: a 1,500-line file split into modules is suddenly readable, diffable, and safe to edit. quality·vibes flags files past ~600 lines and treats 1,200+ as high severity, with the fix written the same way every time. Split along the natural seams, one module per responsibility, re-export from an index so imports stay stable.

Then readability (flatten six-deep nesting with guard clauses, let a formatter kill the 200-character lines), then duplication (fold pasted blocks into one shared function), then dead code (delete commented-out blocks and debug logs, since git already remembers them). Consistency and hygiene come last not because they don't matter but because they're fast: a formatter, an .editorconfig, a .gitignore, and a lockfile fix most of both categories in one sitting.

Every step above is mechanical, which makes it ideal agent work, provided the instructions are precise. "Clean up my code" produces a sprawling, unreviewable rewrite. "Split src/App.tsx along its seams, one module per responsibility, behaviour unchanged, smallest possible diff" produces a fix you can actually review. The difference is specificity, and specificity is what a scan gives you.

quality·vibes automates the finding and the phrasing: paste your repo link and every finding comes back with the file, the line, why it matters, how to fix it, plus a ready-to-paste Claude prompt with behaviour-preserving constraints built in. There's also one tidy-everything plan covering the whole report in severity order. One caveat: this is a cleanliness pass, not a correctness pass. It won't catch a wrong calculation, just everything that makes the wrong calculation hard to find.