Vibe-Coded App & SaaS Rescue
We audit products built with AI coding tools, fix what blocks launch, and stabilise the codebase for real users, real payments, and future developers.
You built a product with an AI coding tool and it worked. The demo convinced people, the landing page collected signups, and a few of them started paying. Then real usage arrived: a checkout that charges twice, a login that loses sessions, a dashboard that slows as data accumulates, an integration that stopped syncing three days ago.
Nothing about that is embarrassing. AI-assisted building shortens the distance between an idea and something people can click, which is what a validation stage needs. Cursor, Lovable, v0, and Claude Code produce a working surface fast, and that speed has value while the open question is whether anyone wants the product. The gap opens later. Money has to move correctly, personal data has to be stored correctly, and a developer has to change one feature without breaking two others.
Rescue work is the engineering that closes that gap: reading the codebase, naming what is fragile, fixing what blocks launch, then leaving a structure your next developer can work in. In practice that is AI-generated code cleanup with engineering on top: keeping the screens that already work, merging components that duplicate each other, and rebuilding the paths that handle money, identity, and stored data.
What usually needs attention
Every rescued product differs, and the same categories keep appearing. Features started and never wired to anything. Three screens that each fetch the same data their own way. Generated components copied across the app with small edits, so one fix has to be applied in five places. No automated tests, which makes every change a coin flip. Secrets committed to the repository. An admin route any logged-in user can open. Database writes with no transaction around them, which is how double charges and orphaned records happen. No error tracking, so failures surface in customer emails.
None of that reflects badly on the person who built it. Generated code matches the instruction it was given, and a prompt asking for a checkout will not produce idempotent payment handling unless someone asks for it by name.
Who this is for
Founders who validated an idea and now have paying users on a prototype never meant to carry them. Non-technical owners whose developer moved on and left a repository nobody else can run. Teams that used AI tools to extend an existing application and now have two conventions side by side. Agencies that inherited a build and need a second opinion before promising a launch date.
Most of our rescue work covers web applications and micro-SaaS products. For iOS and Android builds the same process runs under vibe-coded mobile app rescue, with device testing and store review added.
What we check, and in what order
The order matters: each step depends on the one before it.
1. Deployment and environment
Can the project install and build on a clean machine from the repository, following the instructions that exist? Which services does it call, and which credentials sit on one laptop?
2. Data integrity
We read the schema and every write path. What happens when a request is retried, two users act at once, or a webhook arrives twice? Duplicate subscriptions start here.
3. Authentication and authorisation
Who can register, how sessions are issued and revoked, and whether each endpoint verifies that the caller owns the record requested. A hidden button is not an access rule.
4. Billing and money paths
Every place the product charges, refunds, or grants credit: whether the operation is idempotent, whether webhook signatures are verified, and what state an account lands in after a failed payment.
5. Integrations and secrets
Which external APIs the product depends on, what happens when one is unavailable, whether keys live in environment variables, and whether test and production share credentials.
6. Performance and running costs
Which queries run on each page load, which lack an index, and which line of the monthly bill will grow faster than revenue. We measure before touching anything.
7. Tests and observability
Whether the money and identity paths have automated coverage, whether errors reach somewhere a human reads, and whether the team can tell what worked yesterday.
8. Ownership and access
The repository, hosting, database, domain, DNS, payment provider, and AI provider keys. We record who controls each today and what has to move to your name.
What we deliver
Codebase audit and written findings
A fixed-price review that follows the order above and ends in a document you can act on or hand to another developer. Findings are listed by severity with the file and reason attached. If you only need the audit, the standalone vibe-coded product audit covers that ground alone.
Prioritised rescue plan
A sequenced list of what to fix before launch, what can wait a month, and what should be deleted. Priorities come from risk and revenue.
Critical-fix sprint
A short block of work on what blocks real users: authentication, payments, data loss, and deployment. Customers can then use the product without a founder watching the logs.
Architecture stabilisation
Consolidating duplicated generated code, introducing one pattern for data access and validation, moving secrets out of the repository, and adding tests around the paths that cost money when they break.
Ongoing technical ownership
For founders without an in-house team, we keep the product maintained, handle releases, and own the parts nobody else wants to look after. That runs as a retainer under website maintenance and support, with a defined path for production incidents.
How an engagement runs
The first days are reading: repository, database, infrastructure, and accounts. We come back with findings, a proposed order of work, and what can ship next week.
Then comes the rescue plan, agreed with you before work starts. Fixes arrive in small batches, so you can follow the changes in the running product as they land. Product decisions come to you with two options and the tradeoff attached. An existing developer can work alongside us.
When the critical work is done, you choose the ending: handover with documentation, a continued retainer, or your own team taking over. We will say plainly which one the codebase is ready for.
What it costs
Work starts at our flat rate of $39 per hour, which suits an audit, a fix sprint, or any scope that shifts as we learn. Larger rescues are quoted as a fixed price after the audit, because guessing at a number before reading the code helps nobody.
Scope is measured in weeks. A targeted sprint on authentication or payments is usually one to two weeks. Stabilising the core flows of a micro-SaaS takes longer, and the total depends on how much of the application has to be rebuilt. The pricing page explains both models, including monthly capacity plans from $2,699 for teams that need steady delivery.
Proof
Vasilkoff.info is our own AI estimator and support application, built on Next.js with a separate backend and embeddable chat widgets. It shows the shape we aim for in a rescue: the assistant runs as its own service, so the marketing pages stay fast and a failed AI call cannot take the site down.
SmartAIChats is a conversational SaaS platform with React, Next.js, Node, Express, MongoDB, and OpenAI behind it. It shows what a chat prototype becomes once businesses depend on it: setup for non-technical teams, a data model that can grow, and consistent response handling.
The Big Mail Project is a full-stack platform for sending postcards online, built across Laravel, Node, React, and Next.js. It shows our habit of owning the whole path, from the visible interface to the systems behind it.
Related services
- Web development for the wider range of front-end and back-end work we take on
- AI development when the AI feature is the part that has to work reliably
- Custom web application development when the audit shows a rebuild is the safer route
- Website security audit and malware removal when access control, exposed keys, or injected code need a dedicated look
- API development and integration for the third-party connections that keep the product in sync
Next step
Send us the repository and a short description of what breaks in production. We will tell you whether the product needs a repair or a rebuild, and what the first weeks would cover.
Contact us with your repository link and the failures you are seeing, or run the problem through the Vasilkoff.info estimator for a first scope and cost range.