When a developer goes silent
Your developer disappeared: what to do in the first 48 hours
Your developer or vendor has stopped answering, and the project is half-finished. Before you hire anyone new, protect what you have. Start with these six steps.
Six steps for the first 48 hours
First, try every channel you have once more, and put the request in writing. People get sick and email gets filtered. If there is still no answer, do these in order.
Confirm what you own
Find the contract, the statement of work and any intellectual property or work-for-hire terms. Who owns the code, the designs and the accounts depends on what was signed. Have a lawyer read the contract before you make demands or end the agreement.
Secure access to every account
List every place the product lives and confirm a person at your company is an owner or administrator of each: the code repository, the hosting and cloud accounts, the domain registrar and DNS, the Apple and Google app-store accounts, and third-party services and API keys such as payments, email and analytics. Check renewal and expiry dates while you are there.
Rotate the credentials the developer held
Change the passwords, API keys, SSH keys, VPN accounts and deploy tokens the developer could use, and remove their user accounts. The application may read some of those keys, so update it in the same change, or production can stop working.
Get a copy of the code and the deployment steps
Clone every repository with all its branches, take a backup of each database, and collect how the application is built and deployed: the pipeline, the environment variables and the server or cloud configuration. If the only copy is on the developer's computer, ask for it in writing.
Write down what was in progress
While it is fresh, record the features that were half-built, the open bugs, the dates that were promised, and what you paid for against what was delivered. A replacement team needs this list, and so does any conversation about the contract.
Get an independent assessment before you hire a replacement
A new developer who has not reviewed the code can only guess at the cost to finish it. Get the code, the process and the security reviewed first, so you know what you have before you hire anyone to build on it.
This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Check your contract with a lawyer before you act on ownership or end an agreement.
How the Technical Assessment helps
Step six is what we do. US-based senior engineers review your code, your process, your pipeline and your security, and tell you what you have, what is at risk, and what it will take to finish.
- A comprehensive written report you can take to anyone
- A triage report: what needs to be done, and in what order
- A milestone-based estimate for getting the work done
After the assessment, we can take the project over from your old vendor, then stabilize it and hand it back to your team, or you can take the report to another firm. About the Technical Assessment
- Fixed fee
- $10K
- Duration
- About 1 week
- The report
- Yours to keep
We have done this before
Restore United
Business management platform for restoration companies
- What we found
- A mobile app that could not be distributed or updated: the Android developer account had expired and the build relied on deprecated Cordova tooling.
- What we did
- We migrated the mobile app from Cordova to Capacitor, rebuilt the Android app for redeployment, prepared the iOS app for distribution, and set up a sustainable mobile build and release workflow.
Cultivate
Premium gifting platform
- What we found
- Hardcoded Square API credentials, outdated access controls, and VPNs and SSH keys that nobody had reviewed. Together they put payment data at risk.
- What we did
- We removed the hardcoded Square credentials and rotated all tokens, hardened AWS and RDS access, revoked obsolete VPN and SSH access, standardized access and password rotation across Forge and DigitalOcean, removed lingering access through GitHub, Vercel and DNS, and enforced least privilege across the infrastructure.
Common questions
My developer stopped answering. Do I own the code?
It depends on what your contract says about intellectual property and on the law where it was signed. Ask a lawyer to read it. Whatever the answer, secure a copy of the code and control of your accounts now.
The developer has the only admin login. What can I do?
Contact the support team of each provider: the domain registrar, the cloud host, the app stores and the code host. Most have an account recovery process for the business that owns the account, and they usually ask for proof such as company documents or payment records.
Can someone else finish my half-built app?
Usually, yes. How much of the existing code is worth keeping depends on its condition, and that is what an assessment tells you before you pay someone to find out.
Should I hire a new developer right away?
Not before you know what you have. Without a review of the code, an estimate to finish it is a guess. Secure your accounts first, then get an independent assessment.
How much does Briebug's Technical Assessment cost, and how long does it take?
A fixed fee of $10K, and about 1 week. You get a comprehensive report you can take to anyone, a triage report of what to fix in what order, and a milestone-based estimate. The fee is not credited if you hire us.
Find out what you have before you hire.
Book a short call with a senior engineer. We will scope the assessment and confirm the fixed fee before you commit.