Vibe-to-Production · Methodology

The method adapts.
The standards don't.

We do not arrive with a process and make your project fit it. We read your code, build the checklist from where you actually are, and deliver the fixes in the order that closes the most risk soonest — against published commitments you can hold us to.

Talk to an engineer ↗See the framework
72 hours
01 / TO FIRST FINDINGS
27
02 / YEARS IN PRODUCTION
500+
03 / ENGINEERS
92%
04 / ON-TIME DELIVERY
In one paragraph

Our methodology is adaptive, not written in stone. Every engagement starts by scoring your codebase against a published framework; the result decides what gets fixed, in what order, and which engagement you actually need. What never changes is the discipline underneath — specification before generation, verification before shipping — and the commitments we publish for how we behave while doing it.

Why adaptive

First we read your code. Then we write the plan.

A fixed methodology is a promise about the process. An adaptive one is a promise about the outcome. Two codebases arriving at the same score got there through different gaps, so they get different checklists — built from the same published framework, shaped by what your code actually showed.

A methodology written in stone
The way we actually run it
The same phases, in the same order, for every client.
A checklist built from what your codebase actually scored.
A plan written before anyone has read the code.
A fixed-price diagnosis first — the plan is priced on evidence.
Everyone enters at phase one, regardless of where they are.
You enter at the rung your situation calls for, and skip the ones it doesn't.
Exclusions discovered mid-project, as change orders.
Exclusions written into the SOW before you sign anything.
“Done” is when the hours run out.
“Done” is a re-score against the published framework.
The cycle we shape it from

The order is the method.

This is the cycle every engagement is cut from — the starting point the audit adapts, not a script we run regardless. Almost every failure mode we see in AI-assisted codebases comes from running these out of sequence: generating before specifying, or shipping before verifying.

  1. 01

    Specify before generating

    Write down what the software must do, what it must never do, and how we will know — before any code is produced.

    This is the phase that decides everything downstream. An underspecified request produces plausible code solving a slightly different problem, and that mismatch is expensive precisely because the output looks correct. Most disappointing AI-assisted work traces back to here rather than to the tool.

  2. 02

    Encode the conventions

    Put the project's architecture, naming, patterns and constraints in persistent instructions the tooling reads on every run.

    Agentic tools propagate the patterns they can observe. Left implicit, they replicate whatever they encountered first — including decisions nobody intended as a standard. Written down, quality stops depending on who is prompting today.

  3. 03

    Generate in reviewable units

    Work in changes small enough that a human can genuinely read them, rather than large enough to be skimmed.

    The real constraint on quality is review capacity, not generation speed. A change that gets approved because it resembles correct code is where subtle authorization and validation errors survive. Sizing the work to the review is the control.

  4. 04

    Verify against the running system

    Test the behaviour of the deployed application, not just the shape of the diff.

    Code that reads correctly and a system that behaves correctly are different claims. We check the second — attempting the access that should be denied, exercising the failure paths, confirming the restore works.

  5. 05

    Harden to the framework

    Score the result against all 49 checks and close what matters before calling anything done.

    The same framework we audit clients against applies to our own delivery. It is a floor, not a finish line, and it makes 'done' a claim with evidence attached rather than an opinion.

  6. 06

    Hand over completely

    Leave documentation, conventions and a running system that a different team could take over on Monday.

    A handover that only works if we stay is not a handover. We consider the engagement finished when someone else could operate it without us — and we would rather you keep us because the work is good than because leaving is hard.

The ladder

Start where it hurts. Stop when it's fixed.

The audit decides which rung you enter at — and a diagnosis, a rescue, a rebuild and a retainer are different engagements with different rules, not one project billed four ways. Each one below opens into its full scope, its explicit exclusions, its deliverables and its published commitment.

Price bands and the commercial detail live on the pricing page. Open any rung for what it includes, what it deliberately does not, and what you walk away with.

The fine print, in large print

What we won't do is in writing.

Every rung above lists its exclusions next to its inclusions, and the same boundaries go into the SOW before you sign. A rescue will not quietly grow features. An audit will not touch your code. A retainer will not take your product decisions away from you.

Undefined scope is where service engagements go bad — for the client first. Writing the boundary down up front is what makes a fixed price honest, a ship date credible, and a change order a decision you make rather than a surprise you absorb.

The rhythm

You always know where it stands.

These are the deadlines and rhythms we publish and are held to — reporting, demos, escalation and response times. They are commitments about our own behaviour, which is why we can put numbers on them.

  • 72 hours

    To first findings

    The audit report lands within 72 hours of codebase access. If the codebase is exceptionally large, you hear within 24 hours with a revised date — never silence past a deadline.

  • Every Friday

    Written progress reports

    Every rescue ships a progress report weekly: what closed, what is next, what is blocking. You never have to ask for a status.

  • Every 2 weeks

    Working demos

    Rebuilds demo running software bi-weekly. You evaluate the system itself, not a slide about the system.

  • 48 hours

    Milestone escalation

    A missed milestone triggers a status escalation with a written remediation plan inside 48 hours — automatically, not because you chased it.

  • 4 hours

    Critical response

    Critical production issues get a response within 4 hours — during every post-launch week and on every retainer.

  • 24 hours

    Standard response

    Standard retainer requests are answered within 24 hours, with the month's capacity guaranteed in advance.

Applied to somebody else's code

A rescue runs the same cycle backwards.

When we inherit an AI-built codebase, the specification does not exist — the application is the only record of what was intended. So the first phase becomes reconstruction: reading the code and talking to whoever built it until we can write down what it is supposed to do, and what it must never do.

That document is frequently the most valuable thing we produce. It is what makes the remaining work assessable, it is what lets tests be written against intent rather than against current behaviour, and it is what survives if you later take the project elsewhere.

From there the cycle runs forward as normal — conventions, reviewable changes, verification, hardening against the readiness framework, handover. What differs by platform is mostly which gaps we expect to find, which is why each tool gets its own page. The commercial shape is on the pricing page.

FAQ

Questions about the process.

QWhy publish your methodology?
Because most agencies claim AI expertise and very few will describe what they actually do. Publishing it lets you evaluate the process before hiring us, and it holds us to it afterwards. The risk that a competitor copies it is smaller than the risk that nobody can tell us apart.
QDo we have to start with the audit?
Almost always, and deliberately: nobody can price this work honestly before reading the code. The audit is fixed-price, delivers findings within 72 hours of codebase access, and ends with a recommendation — rescue, rebuild, retainer, or none of the above. Everything after it is priced on evidence rather than on a guess.
QWhy do you publish what each engagement excludes?
Because undefined scope is where service engagements go bad. Every engagement states its exclusions in the SOW before you sign — no new features inside a rescue, no product strategy inside a rebuild — and defines what counts as a scope change up front. You should never discover a boundary mid-project.
QWhat happens if you miss a milestone?
You hear about it from us, formally, with a plan. A missed rebuild milestone triggers a status escalation with a written remediation plan within 48 hours. Alongside that sit the standing rhythms: written progress reports every Friday on rescues, working-software demos every two weeks on rebuilds.
QDoes AI write our code?
It writes a substantial share of it, under specification and review, with tests and human judgement deciding what reaches production. Generation is the cheap part of software. Deciding what to build, choosing an architecture that survives the roadmap, and owning it when it breaks at 3am are what you are actually paying for.
QHow is this different from how our own team already works?
Often it is not, and that is fine — teams with real specification and review discipline get short findings lists from us. The difference is usually that the discipline is explicit and enforced structurally, rather than depending on whoever is most careful that week.
QWhich tools do you use?
Claude Code and agentic tooling across engineering and senior management, daily, on client work and our own systems. We are specific about their limits on this site because we have run into them ourselves rather than read about them.
QCan you apply this to our existing codebase?
Yes — that is exactly what a rescue is. We establish the specification and verification layer around code that was built without one, which is usually more valuable than any individual fix we make.
QDo you train our engineers in this?
Commonly, on the retainer. Our engineers work alongside yours and establish the practice rather than only delivering code. Minimum 3 months, because habits take longer than that to set.
No-obligation diagnosis

Send us the repository. We'll tell you what's missing.

Fixed price, 72 hours to findings, and a report you can act on with or without us. Nothing is committed until you have read it.

NDA signed before you send anything · read-only access, revoked when the report lands · our copy deleted on delivery.

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