For founders and teams with AI-built apps
Vibe-Coded App Rescue
You built something people want with Lovable, Bolt, Replit or Cursor. Now it has real users and real data, and you are not sure it is safe.
We review it in five days, close the security holes, and make it something a developer can maintain and an investor can trust.
Signs Your AI-Built App Needs Help
Your data is open to the internet
Supabase tables with row level security turned off. API keys sitting in the front-end bundle. Anyone with a browser and some patience can read your customer records.
Every new prompt breaks something
You ask the AI to fix the checkout and the login stops working. The app grew faster than anyone could understand it, and now each change is a gamble.
Nobody can maintain it
No tests, no documentation, components thousands of lines long. A developer you hire spends the first month working out what the code does.
It will not survive a security questionnaire
An enterprise customer, an investor or a cyber insurer has asked how the app handles auth, backups and personal information. You do not have good answers yet.
From Prototype to Production in Four Steps
One of our CTOs reviews your app, plans the work and leads the rescue. A small team of AI-driven developers does the build under that CTO's review. You always know what we found, what we changed and what it cost.
Production Readiness Review
We read the code, test the live app and check auth, data access, secrets, dependencies and hosting. You get a findings report, a keep, fix or rebuild call, and a fixed quote.
Close the holes
Critical security issues first: lock down database access, rotate exposed keys, fix broken auth. Your users keep using the app while we work.
Harden or rebuild
Add tests around the features that make you money, untangle the worst code, set up CI/CD, monitoring and backups. Rebuild only the parts that cannot be saved.
Hand over or stay on
Hand the codebase to your developers with documentation they can use, or keep us on as a fractional CTO while you hire and grow.
Why AI-Built Apps Need a Second Look
of AI-generated code samples failed security tests with an OWASP Top 10 flaw
Source: Veracode, 2025 GenAI Code Security Reporthigh-impact vulnerabilities and 400+ exposed secrets found across 5,600 public vibe-coded apps
Source: Escape.tech, October 2025from first look to a clear keep, fix or rebuild decision with a fixed quote
Our Production Readiness Review
Keep, Fix or Rebuild?
Every review ends with one of three calls. Most apps land on fix. We recommend a rebuild only when the numbers say patching will cost more.
The data model is sound, the main user flows work, and the problems are configuration: database policies, secrets, environment settings, missing backups.
Usually done inside the review week and a short follow-up.
The app works and people pay for it, but the code is tangled, untested and fragile. The structure underneath can carry the next 12 months of growth.
A focused sprint of two to six weeks. This is the most common result.
The data model is wrong for the business, auth is bolted on, or every fix uncovers two more. Patching would cost more than starting again.
We keep the prototype as the specification and rebuild on a stack your next developer will recognise.
Want the full checklist? Read our guide to fixing or rebuilding a vibe-coded app
Vibe Code Rescue Pricing
Fixed fees, agreed before any work starts. Most clients start with the review and decide what to do next once they have the findings.
Production Readiness Review
One of our CTOs reviews the code and the live app. You get a ranked findings report, a keep, fix or rebuild call and a fixed quote for the work.
Harden and Ship Sprint
Your CTO plans and leads the sprint. A small team of AI-driven developers closes the security holes, adds tests, sets up CI/CD and fixes the riskiest code.
AI App Inventory
For organisations whose teams are building their own apps. We find them, rate each one by risk and bring the useful ones under IT governance.
Need ongoing technical leadership after the rescue? Keep your CTO on as a fractional CTO.
Platforms and Tools We Work With
- Lovable
- Bolt
- Replit
- Cursor
- v0
- Windsurf
- Claude Code
- Base44
- Supabase
- Firebase
- Vercel
- Netlify
For CIOs and IT leaders
Your Business Teams Are Already Building Apps
Marketing has a lead tracker built in Lovable. Operations has a rostering tool someone made in Replit over a weekend. Finance has a Cursor-built script that pushes data into Xero. Some of these are genuinely useful. Most were never reviewed by IT, and several probably hold customer data.
Banning them rarely works. We help you find what exists, rate each app by the data it touches and who depends on it, and then decide: retire it, leave it alone, or bring it under IT governance and harden it. The useful ones become supported tools. The risky ones get switched off before they become a breach notification.
How a Vibe Code Rescue Works
AI coding tools are very good at getting a product to the point where people want it. They are much worse at the boring parts that keep it alive: access control, error handling, tests, backups. Our job is to add those parts without killing the speed that got you here.
Review
One of our CTOs reads the codebase and probes the running app the way an attacker would. We check database policies, where secrets live, how sessions work, what happens when a third-party API fails, and whether a new developer could find their way around. The output is a plain-English report ranked by business risk, not a 200-line scanner dump.
Stabilise
Your CTO plans the fixes and a small team of AI-driven developers carries them out, starting with the issues that could hurt you this month: data exposure, auth, payments, then reliability. Every change goes through version control with a short note on why, so you can see exactly what we did. Your users should not notice anything except that things stop breaking.
Industrialise
Tests around the flows that make money, a deployment pipeline, monitoring that tells you about problems before customers do, and documentation your next hire will actually read. We can keep using AI tools on your codebase after this, with guard rails that make the output safe to ship.
What You Walk Away With
Each engagement ends with artefacts you own. They are written so a founder can read them and a developer can act on them.
Production readiness report
Findings ranked by risk, with evidence, the business impact of each and a plain recommendation. Includes the keep, fix or rebuild call and the reasoning behind it.
Fixed quote for the work
A scope and a fixed fee for the sprint, so you know the cost before any code changes. If you would rather do the fixes in-house, the report tells your team what to do.
Secured, tested codebase
Database access locked down, secrets moved out of the client, auth reviewed, and automated tests around the critical user journeys.
Deployment and monitoring setup
CI/CD that runs the tests on every change, environment separation, error tracking, uptime alerts and a tested backup and restore.
Handover pack
Architecture notes, a map of the codebase, a short guide to working on it safely with AI tools, and a list of what to fix next.
If the review shows the app is in better shape than you feared, we will tell you that and stop there.
Is This the Right Service for You?
Vibe code rescue suits apps that have proved they are worth saving. If people use it, pay for it or depend on it at work, it is worth making safe.
A good fit if
- ✓You built an MVP with Lovable, Bolt, Replit, Cursor or similar and now have real users, real data or paying customers.
- ✓You are about to raise money, sign an enterprise customer or answer a security questionnaire.
- ✓Your business teams have built internal tools with AI platforms and IT now needs to know what exists and what it touches.
- ✓You hired a developer to take over and they told you it needs a rewrite. You want an independent second opinion.
Probably not the right time if
- ·You have an idea but no working app yet. You need a build partner, not a rescue.
- ·The app is a personal project with no users or personal data. A free checklist will do the job.
- ·You want someone to keep prompting the same tools without changing how the code is managed.
Not sure where you sit? Book a 30-minute call. We will tell you honestly whether you need us.
How This Plays Out in Practice
From Weekly Outages to 99.8% Uptime Before a Series B
A Sydney SaaS company lost its CTO four months before a Series B. The platform had weekly outages, deployments took three weeks and nobody understood the whole architecture. We traced 70% of outages to one overloaded queue and fixed it in week three. Then we rebuilt the CI/CD pipeline and wrote the architecture documentation investors asked for. We deliberately did not rewrite the platform. The goal was to make the existing code defensible, which is the same call we make on most AI-built apps.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to fix a vibe-coded app?
The Production Readiness Review costs A$3,500 plus GST and takes five business days. After the review you get a fixed quote for the fixes. A Harden and Ship Sprint usually costs between A$12,000 and A$35,000 plus GST and takes two to six weeks. Configuration problems such as database policies and exposed keys are often fixed in days. A full rebuild is rare and only recommended when patching would cost more.
Who does the work on a vibe code rescue?
One of our CTOs reviews your app, plans the work and leads the rescue from start to finish. A small team of AI-driven developers does the build, and every change goes through the CTO before it ships. You deal with one senior person the whole way through.
Which AI coding tools and platforms do you work with?
We work with apps built in Lovable, Bolt, Replit, Cursor, v0, Windsurf, Claude Code and Base44, and with the services they usually sit on, including Supabase, Firebase, Vercel and Netlify. Most of these produce React or Next.js front ends with a Postgres or Firebase back end, which is a stack we know well.
Should I fix my vibe-coded app or rebuild it?
Most apps should be fixed, not rebuilt. Rebuild when the data model does not fit the business, when authentication was bolted on late, or when every fix uncovers two new problems. Keep and fix when the core flows work and the issues are configuration, missing tests or messy code. The review week exists to make this call with evidence.
Will my app stay online while you fix it?
Yes. We work in a separate environment and release changes in small steps. Urgent security fixes such as locking down an exposed database go out first, usually within days, and should not affect your users.
Does my AI-built app need to comply with the Australian Privacy Act?
If your business is covered by the Privacy Act 1988 and the app collects personal information, the Australian Privacy Principles apply no matter how the app was built. A data breach that is likely to cause serious harm may also need to be reported under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme. The review flags where the app stores personal information and whether it is protected.
Can you keep using AI tools on my codebase after the rescue?
Yes, and we usually recommend it. The aim is not to stop using AI. It is to put tests, code review and deployment checks around it so the next AI-generated change cannot quietly break security or core features.
Find Out What Is Really in Your App
Book a 30-minute triage call. Send us the repo link or the app URL first and we will come with a view on where the biggest risks are.