Your developer's gone.
We take over from here.
A freelancer stopped answering messages. A no-code developer hit a ceiling they couldn't get past. Either way, you're left holding a codebase nobody documented and access you're not even sure you fully control. We read it, document it, stabilize it, and become the team you should have had, on a fixed scope.
You already paid for this once.
- Your freelancer or agency stopped responding, mid-project or right after you paid the final invoice.
- Your no-code developer hit the platform's ceiling and doesn't know how to get past it, or won't say so directly.
- Nobody ever documented the architecture, the database schema, or why anything was built the way it was.
- You're not sure you actually have full access to your own repo, domain, or hosting accounts.
- You're scared to touch the code because you have no idea what it will break, and no one to ask.
We reclaim it, read it, and stand it back up.
Access & ownership audit
Confirm you actually own your repository, domain, hosting, and accounts, and reclaim any you don't fully control.
Full codebase read-through
A senior engineer reads the entire codebase and infrastructure to understand what exists, what works, and what's dangerous to touch.
Document the architecture
Produce the architecture documentation that should have existed from day one, so it's no longer a black box.
Stabilize
Get the app back to a known-good, deployable state before touching anything new.
Triage the backlog
Sort through whatever half-finished work was left behind and prioritize it by what actually matters to your business.
Fixed-scope plan
A fixed-price proposal for remaining work, so you're never billed into an open-ended hole again.
Actual ownership, and a team that won't disappear.
- Full access, recovered or verified. Your repo, domains, hosting, and accounts, confirmed under your control.
- An architecture document. What the system does, how it's structured, and where the risk lives.
- A prioritized backlog. Everything that was left unfinished, ranked by what actually matters.
- A stable, deployable build. Back to a known-good state before anything new gets added.
- A fixed-scope plan for what's next. No open-ended billing, ever, from this team.
Priced by codebase condition, not by the hour.
A $1,500 Rapid Diagnostic tells us how bad it is, credited toward the full diagnostic audit. The takeover itself is always a fixed price, never open-ended.
We assess the codebase's actual condition before quoting the takeover. Starts with a $1,500 Rapid Diagnostic.
Stabilize what exists and get it production-ready.
If the foundation can't be salvaged, a full rebuild with us as the ongoing team.
Talk to usSee the full pricing breakdown for every service.
If any of this sounds like you.
Composite personas, written to describe who this is for. Not real clients, and not real messages.
"I already paid someone $15k. Now it's broken and they're gone."
You believed in the product enough to pay for it once. We take over the unfinished build on a fixed scope.
"We just took on a client whose last dev vanished."
You need a senior team that can read someone else's mess quickly and stand it back up without starting from scratch.
Exactly what is in scope, and exactly what is not.
The same spec block sits on every service page, so you can compare them line for line. What is excluded matters as much as what is included, because that is where scope disputes come from.
- An access and ownership audit: every repository, hosting account, database, domain and third-party service the product depends on, and who actually controls each one.
- Recovery or re-creation of access you have lost, and rotation of every credential the previous developer held.
- A full read-through of the codebase by a senior engineer, not a skim of the README.
- A written architecture document: what runs where, what talks to what, what the data model actually represents, and where the landmines are.
- Stabilisation, so there is a build that deploys reliably before anyone argues about the roadmap.
- A triaged backlog of everything inherited, ranked by risk and by what blocks the next thing you want to do.
- A fixed-scope plan for what comes next, so taking over does not turn into an open-ended retainer by default.
- Fixing everything in the triaged backlog. The handoff produces the list and the plan. Closing the list is scoped from it.
- A full security audit. Anything alarming gets flagged immediately, but a real review is a separate engagement.
- Legal recovery of accounts a departed developer will not release. We document exactly what is locked and who holds it; the legal route is yours.
- New feature development during the handoff itself. Takeover first, then features, so nothing gets built on a foundation nobody has read yet.
- Any certification. We assess, harden and document. No engineering firm can issue a SOC 2 report or certify HIPAA compliance.
- Acting as a reference or arbiter in a dispute with the previous developer.
Verified, documented ownership of every account and service the product runs on. A written architecture document. A prioritized backlog with risk attached to each item. A stable, deployable build. And a fixed-scope plan for whatever you decide to do next, with a price against it.
We aim to start triage within 24 to 48 hours of getting repository access. The full handoff runs on a dated milestone schedule set in the proposal, sized to the codebase rather than to a generic estimate.
Senior engineers only, with production experience that predates the current generation of AI tooling. The engineer who reads the inherited codebase is the engineer who owns it afterwards. No junior pool, no offshore handoff, no account manager in between.
- How much access you still have. Recovering or rebuilding lost accounts is real work before any code gets read.
- Codebase size and how many separate services and providers are involved.
- How much documentation exists. A cold takeover with zero notes is the most expensive version of this job.
- Data sensitivity, which sets the consequence tier the work is priced in.
- Whether the product is currently live and serving users, which makes every change more careful.
Tell us what you still have access to and what you do not. We start triage inside 24 to 48 hours, produce the access audit first because that is the part that gets worse with time, then deliver the architecture document and the triaged backlog with a fixed-price plan attached.
What people ask before a handoff.
What if I don't have access to everything?
Very common. Part of the handoff process is an access and ownership audit: recovering or re-establishing control of your repository, domain, hosting, database, and third-party accounts so you actually own what you paid for.
What if the code is a mess with no documentation?
That's the default state we walk into, not the exception. We read the codebase end to end and produce the documentation that should have existed from the start, then stabilize from there.
Will I get billed into an open-ended hole again?
No. After the diagnostic, we give you a fixed-scope proposal for the takeover and any remaining work, so you know the total cost before anything further gets built.
Can you work with whatever stack the previous developer used?
In almost every case, yes, including apps originally built with Cursor, Lovable, Replit, Bolt, v0, Windsurf, GitHub Copilot, or VS Code, code generated directly by Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, Llama, DeepSeek, or Mistral, and standard web stacks built by hand. If a stack genuinely can't be taken over safely, we tell you before you pay for a diagnostic.
How fast can you start?
We aim to start triage within 24 to 48 hours of getting repository access.
What if there's no documentation at all, not even a README?
Normal starting point. Reading and documenting undocumented code is a core part of this service, not an extra we charge separately for.
Send us what you have. We'll take it from here.
A senior engineer reads your actual code and gives you a straight assessment. No sales engineer, no junior.