App rescue · Cursor
The codebase grew faster than anyone's understanding of it
Cursor is a genuinely good tool in experienced hands, which is exactly why its failure mode is different. You do not end up with a broken toy — you end up with several thousand lines of plausible code, no tests, and no one who can say with confidence what happens if you change any of it.
What actually breaks
The four failures we see most in Cursor builds
These are specific to Cursor. A rescue starts by working out which of them you have.
Four implementations of the same thing
Each generated in a different session, none deleted. Fixing a bug in one leaves the other three wrong, which is why the same bug keeps coming back.
No tests, so no safe change
Every modification is a gamble. Velocity collapses not because the code is bad but because nobody can verify anything, so nobody wants to touch it.
Silent error handling
Try/catch blocks that swallow failures to make the app appear to work. Problems surface days later as missing data with no trace of what happened.
Security handled by assumption
Authorisation checked in the interface but not on the server, so the API will happily serve any record to anyone who asks it directly.
What we do
What a rescue includes
Scoped after the audit, so you see the plan and the price before anything is touched.
- A written audit of what exists, what is duplicated and what is unsafe
- Duplicate implementations consolidated to one, with the dead copies deleted rather than left in place
- Tests around the flows that actually matter, so change becomes safe
- Real error handling and logging in place of silent failure
- Server-side authorisation on every endpoint that needs it
The first audit is free · written findings within 48 hours · the report is yours either way
Questions, answered
Is it cheaper to refactor or rewrite?
Refactor, in most cases — the business logic usually encodes real decisions you would only have to rediscover. We recommend a rewrite when the data model itself cannot support where the product needs to go, and we will tell you plainly which situation you are in.
Can you work alongside us rather than taking it over?
Yes. A common arrangement is that we stabilise and document the codebase, then hand it back with tests so your team can move quickly again without inheriting the same problem.
What does the free audit actually include?
We look at the real thing — the live app or the repository, not a description of it — and send back a written assessment within 48 hours: what is salvageable, what is not, what it would cost to get to production, and what we would do first. It is yours to keep whether or not you hire us.
Do I own the code after you fix it?
Yes. You own the repository, the infrastructure and every account it runs on, with documentation and a handover. That is true of a rescue exactly as it is of a build.