Maintenance for AI-generated software: when vibe coding stalls
You built it in a weekend with Cursor, Lovable or ChatGPT. It worked. Then real customers arrived, along with the first bug the AI cannot explain and the change that breaks three other things. From here on you need someone who can read the code.
The problem
What nobody
told you.
If this sounds like you, nothing went wrong: you validated an idea at minimum cost. Now comes the next step.
What generated code tends to look like
Code that works, and nobody knows why
Not even the AI that wrote it, in a fresh session.
No tests, no documentation
Every change is a jump in the dark.
Improvised security
API keys in the code, wide-open permissions, exposed data.
Fragile dependencies
Deprecated libraries, incompatible versions, updates that break everything.
Architecture that won't scale
Perfect for 10 users, collapses at 500.
The good side
You validated an idea at minimum cost
AI coding tools made it possible to build software without knowing how to program. That is a good thing: ideas that used to die in a drawer now become products.
Usually a lot can be saved
Rewriting from scratch is almost always the lazy answer. First you work out what survives — normally more than you expect.
The method
What we do.
Five steps, in this order. Security comes before everything else.
Code audit
We read all of it: structure, security, dependencies, breaking points. You get a report with priorities: what is urgent, what can wait, what has to be rebuilt.
Securing it
We close the holes: exposed credentials, permissions, backups, GDPR. Before anything else.
Consolidation
Automated tests, documentation, refactoring of the critical parts. The software stops being a black box.
Ongoing maintenance
Monthly retainer: monitoring, updates, fixes and small improvements. Your software finally has someone answering for it.
Evolution
When it needs to grow, we build the new features — with AI as a tool, not as the only author.
The difference
Why we are
the right people for this.
We use AI to build software every day. We know the patterns generated code falls into, and the mistakes it repeats. We are not starting from zero to decipher it.
Recovering orphaned code is one of our two specialisations
Vibe coding is the 2026 version of the developer who vanished. → Software Rescue
No lectures, no "let's rebuild everything"
First we work out what can be saved. Usually a lot.
You own the code, our processes are ISO 9001
Documented, and yours.
We use AI, we don't submit to it
It is a tool in our workflow, with human review on everything we ship.
Who this is for
Who tends to
end up here.
Four different situations with the same thing underneath.
Founders
With an AI-generated MVP that has found its first paying customers.
Companies with an internal tool gone critical
The one person who tinkers built something that now holds up a business process.
Startups going to production
Prototyped with Lovable, Bolt or Replit, now needing a product that holds.
Agencies
They shipped AI-generated projects and now cannot maintain them.
FAQ
Before you ask.
Yes. The stack underneath those tools is almost always standard (React, Node, Python, Laravel…). The problem is not the technology, it is the state of the code — and that is exactly what we fix.
The audit has a fixed fee, stated before we start, in proportion to the size of the project. If you then hand us the consolidation work, we take it off the quote.
That is the exact question our audit answers, with numbers: cost of consolidation against cost of a rewrite. In most cases far more survives than you would expect.
The definitive answer comes with the audit. But a first look at the repository already tells us whether there are blocking problems, and in that case we say so immediately — we will not make you wait for the report to hear news we already have.
Yes, once it is secured. Leaving known holes open is the one thing we will not sign off on.
Does your software work "as long as nobody touches it"?
Send it over. We will tell you what it actually consists of, what it is risking and what it costs to put right.
ISO 9001:2015 certified
Written requirements, tracked changes, a defined path for every issue.
Benefit Corporation
Goals written into the bylaws, an impact report every year.
Listed on MePA
The Italian public sector e-procurement marketplace.
