Rescuing a Vibe-Coded App That's Breaking in Production
What Prodevel can do when your AI-generated codebase is failing under real users
If you built your app with Lovable, Cursor, Bolt, or v0 and it worked in development but is now breaking with paying customers, this is what a Prodevel rescue engagement could look like.
Is This You?
Technical or semi-technical founder who used AI tools to build a working MVP, now has paying customers, and is hitting production problems they can't fix alone
Questions You\'re Probably Asking
- Q1How do I fix a broken Lovable app?
- Q2My Cursor-generated app is crashing in production — what do I do?
- Q3How do I make a vibe-coded app production-ready?
- Q4Can you refactor and secure an AI-generated codebase?
- Q5What are the risks of shipping vibe-coded software?
The FAQ section at the bottom of this page answers all of these in detail.
The Challenges This Scenario Involves
- App works in development or for single users but breaks under concurrent load
- Security vulnerabilities flagged by a customer's IT team or a security scanner
- No automated tests — every change risks breaking something for paying users
- No CI/CD pipeline — deployments are manual and terrifying
- Codebase is tangled enough that you can't hire engineers to work on it
- Database queries are unoptimised and slowing down as data grows
How Prodevel Would Approach This
Vibe-coded codebases are not inherently unfixable — they're just built for speed, not production. If you brought a broken AI-generated app to Prodevel, here is how we would approach it. We start with a full audit before touching a single line of code — because the wrong first action can make things worse for paying users.
Code & Security Audit
Week 1- Full codebase audit — architecture, dependencies, security, performance
- Identify and triage critical vulnerabilities (SQL injection, exposed secrets, XSS)
- Database query analysis — identify N+1 queries and missing indexes
- Dependency audit — outdated or vulnerable packages flagged
- Prioritised remediation roadmap produced before any code changes
Critical Fixes (Zero Downtime)
Week 1–3- Security vulnerabilities patched first — credentials rotated, input validation added
- Environment variables and secrets moved to proper secret management
- Immediate performance fixes — query optimisation, caching for hottest paths
- Error boundary implementation — crashes isolated, not cascading
- All changes deployed to a staging environment and tested before production
Architecture Restructuring
Week 3–7- Incremental refactor — no big-bang rewrites that break live users
- Async task queue introduced for background jobs (email sending, data processing)
- Database schema cleaned up with migration scripts
- Authentication and authorisation layer reviewed and hardened
- Test suite written in parallel with refactoring — every refactored module gets tests
CI/CD & Handover
Week 7–9- GitHub Actions CI/CD pipeline with automated testing on every pull request
- Staging environment identical to production
- Automated deployment to production — no more manual FTP or SSH deploys
- Monitoring and alerting set up (Datadog or Sentry)
- Engineering documentation and README so you can hire with confidence
What You Could Expect
A stable, secure, tested codebase with CI/CD and documentation — ready to hire engineers and grow.
Services Involved in This Scenario
Fix Your Vibe Code
Dedicated rescue service for AI-generated codebases. Audit, security patching, refactoring, and CI/CD setup.
Custom Software Development
Where vibe-coded components need to be rebuilt rather than fixed — clean, tested, production-grade replacements.
DevOps & Cloud Solutions
CI/CD pipelines, staging environments, infrastructure-as-code, and monitoring — the operational foundations your app needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it better to fix a vibe-coded app or rebuild it from scratch?
Almost always better to fix incrementally if you have paying customers. A full rebuild takes months, during which your live product receives no improvements and your paying customers continue experiencing problems. We refactor surgically — fixing the critical issues first, then improving the architecture incrementally without disruption. A rebuild is only recommended when the architecture is so fundamentally broken that incremental repair would cost more than starting fresh.
What are the most common security problems in AI-generated code?
The most frequent issues we find are: SQL injection vulnerabilities (AI often skips parameterised queries), hardcoded API keys and credentials in source code, missing authentication on internal API endpoints, insufficient input validation, and overly permissive CORS settings. These are all fixable, but dangerous in production — particularly if a customer's security team runs a scan and finds them.
Can you work on the codebase without taking the app offline?
Yes. We work on a separate branch, test in a staging environment that mirrors production, and deploy changes during low-traffic windows with rollback plans in place. Paying customers should experience zero planned downtime during the rescue engagement.
How long does a vibe code rescue take?
Critical security fixes and the most urgent stability issues are typically addressed in the first 2–3 weeks. A complete rescue — security, architecture, tests, and CI/CD — typically takes 6–10 weeks depending on codebase size and complexity. We give you a realistic timeline after the audit in week one.
What if we want to add new features during the rescue?
We recommend a feature freeze during the early phases of the rescue — adding new features to an unstable codebase compounds the problems. Once the critical fixes are in place and the test suite exists, new feature development can resume safely. This usually means a 3–4 week feature freeze for most codebases.
Will you judge us for using Lovable or Cursor to build the app?
Not at all — AI-assisted development is fast and a legitimate approach for getting to validation. The tools are good at what they do. The gap is production readiness: error handling, security, testing, and scalability aren't priorities when you're building fast. That's what we fix. We've seen enough of these codebases to find them straightforward to work with.
Does This Sound Like Your Situation?
Book a free consultation. We'll listen to your specific context and tell you honestly whether Prodevel is the right fit and what an engagement would look like.