05
Finish My AI-Built App
Most of it exists. The last stretch is the part where the AI stopped being useful — the integrations, the edge cases, the settings screen nobody wants to build, the deployment that never quite worked.
What the last 20% usually is
- A payment or auth integration that's 80% wired and untested.
- The screens that aren't fun to build, so they never got built.
- Edge cases — empty states, errors, slow networks, expired sessions.
- Real deployment, on a real domain, with real environment variables.
- The difference between a demo and something you can charge for.
What I actually do
- 01
Establish what's actually done
"80% complete" is usually an estimate of the visible parts. I go through the app and produce an honest inventory of what's finished, what's stubbed, and what only appears to work.
- 02
Keep what works
I'm not here to rewrite your app because I'd have structured it differently. Working code stays unless there's a concrete reason it can't.
- 03
Build the remainder
The missing features, the integrations, the unglamorous screens — implemented in the style the codebase already uses, so it stays coherent.
- 04
Get it live
Deployed, configured, and actually reachable by the people you want using it.
How long it takes
Entirely dependent on the requirements — the gap between “nearly done” and done varies enormously. The completion inventory takes about a day, and gives you a real number before you commit to anything else.
Questions about this
Do I need to rebuild my application?
Usually not. Rewriting is the most expensive option and it’s rarely the one the code actually calls for. I’d rather find the specific things that are broken and fix those.
Can you help with deployment?
Yes, and it’s one of the most common reasons people get in touch. "It works locally" is almost always an environment, configuration or build problem rather than a code problem, and those are findable.
What do you need from me?
Less than you’d think. A repository or a deployed URL, some idea of what’s broken, and access to whatever is failing — logs, the hosting dashboard, an error message. If you don’t have all of that, send what you do have and I’ll tell you what else I need.
Your AI-built app doesn’t need another prompt.
Sometimes it needs an engineer.
Send the messy version. That’s usually the useful version.