Vibe Code Audit
You Built It With AI. Let's Make Sure It Holds Up.
A professional security and production-readiness review for apps built with Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, Replit, or any AI coding tool. You get a written report with prioritized fixes, delivered in days.
Two questions, one review. Is this ready for real users and real data — not just a demo? And are you set up to keep shipping fast without every change getting slower and riskier? I look at both the security model and the development workflow underneath it.
Pricing
Clear Scope. Fixed Price.
Audits start at $4,000.
Each audit is scoped based on codebase size, architecture complexity, and the depth of review required. You'll receive a fixed price before the audit begins, and it doesn't change mid-review.
What determines your quote
- How many repositories — one app, or a front end, a back end, and a few services.
- How much code there is — a few screens reads faster than months of accumulated features.
- Which integrations are wired in — auth providers, storage, email, and anything else your app hands data to.
- Whether money or sensitive data moves through it — payment paths, financial records, and personal information get a closer look.
Finding these problems after launch — leaked user data, a launch you have to roll back — is rarely cheaper than finding them before.
The problem
The Problem
You're a designer, founder, marketer, or product person who built something real with AI coding tools. It works. It looks right. You've been using it yourself, maybe with a few friends or your team. Now you want to open it up to actual users — and keep adding to it.
There's a gap between "it works on my machine" and "it's safe for production." AI tools write functional code, but they don't always get security right. Row-level access policies, authentication edge cases, file storage permissions, environment separation. These are the things that break quietly and expensively.
There's a second gap that shows up later: how fast you can keep shipping. The way you ship changes determines whether your second month is faster than your first or slower.
You've probably spent hours asking AI to double-check its own work, but you still can't tell if it actually got it right. That instinct to get a professional review is exactly the right one.
Where vibe-coded apps break — in production and in the workflow
- Data leaks between usersCritical
- Auth bypassCritical
- Exposed secretsCritical
- No dev/prod separationHigh
- Slow PR reviewsHigh
- Fragile deploy processHigh
- No error trackingMedium
- No CI/CD pipelineMedium
An experienced engineer spots these in hours. Without one, the security risks surface when real users find them for you — and the workflow risks quietly slow every change you ship after.
Audit scope
What Does a Vibe Code Audit Cover?
Authentication and session management
How users log in, how sessions are managed, whether auth can be bypassed by manipulating URLs or tokens.
Multi-tenant data isolation
If your app has multiple users, can one user see another's data? I verify row-level security policies, API access controls, and data boundaries.
File and document storage
Bucket permissions, signed URL configuration, and whether uploaded files are accessible to unauthorized users.
Environment and secrets
API keys in source code, dev vs. production database separation, environment variable handling. The things that seem fine until they're not.
Data exposure in sharing features
If your app lets users share content, I verify that private data stays private. Sharing a collection shouldn't leak financial records.
Development workflow review
How changes get from idea to production: PR process, review bottlenecks, branching, and where work piles up instead of shipping.
Deploy pipeline review
CI/CD setup, rollback strategy, smoke tests, and how fragile the path to production is when something goes wrong mid-deploy.
Monitoring and observability
Error tracking, alerting, and logging. Whether you find out about problems before your users do, and whether you can tell what went wrong when they do.
Production readiness
Dependency vulnerabilities, deployment configuration, and the operational basics that keep an app running once real people depend on it.
Velocity
Development Workflow Health
Security tells you whether it's safe to ship today. Workflow tells you whether you can keep shipping next month without the whole thing slowing to a crawl. Most vibe-coded apps launch with a workflow that worked fine for one person and quietly breaks the moment there's real traffic and real changes to make.
These aren't launch blockers. That's exactly why they get ignored — until every change is slow, risky, and stressful. Here's what I look at.
PR and review process
Slow reviews compound. When PRs sit for days or weeks, branches drift, conflicts pile up, and the cost of every change goes up. I look at how work actually moves from written to merged.
Deploy pipeline fragility
Long deploys, smoke tests that fail and force a full restart, no clean rollback. When shipping is scary, you ship less — and that's how small problems become big ones.
CI/CD and automation gaps
Whether tests, checks, and deploys run automatically or depend on someone remembering the right sequence of manual steps. Manual steps are where regressions sneak back in.
Error tracking and monitoring
Whether you find out about failures from a dashboard or from an angry user. Without observability, you're debugging blind every time something breaks in production.
Environment separation
Clean boundaries between dev, staging, and production. Testing against live user data, or deploying straight from your laptop, is a class of mistake that's cheap to fix early and expensive to fix later.
Deliverable
What's Included in the Audit Report?
A written report with two sections:
Section 1
Pre-Launch Blockers
Issues that must be fixed before inviting real users. Security vulnerabilities, data exposure risks, and anything that could cause real damage if left unaddressed.
Section 2
Post-Launch Backlog
Recommended improvements for once you have traction — including the workflow and deploy fixes that keep you shipping fast. Not urgent, but prioritized so you know what to tackle first.
Every issue includes what the problem is, why it matters, and how to fix it. Written so you can hand it to an AI coding tool and get the fix implemented, or follow along yourself.
From the clients
What Clients Say
“I found Damian via Claude when looking for a real software engineer to take an application from vibe-coded internal demo/prototype to fully deployed tool in less than 3 weeks…
What I was looking for was just someone to make sure PII was secure, that we didn't have any glaring security vulnerabilities in our code and database, and to make sure the app wouldn't break when being used in real life. He turned out to be a true strategic partner who not only brought proper DevOps to that app and every other project we are working on at WareSpace, but also helped define the product direction, scope, roadmap, etc. through consultative working sessions. It's rare to find an engineer with deep technical knowledge, strong business acumen, and who also speaks "human" to communicate with non-technical stakeholders.”
Eric Golman
CMO, WareSpace
“Damian worked with me on a technical audit and code review ahead of a new product launch, acting as a senior-level sense check on database architecture, permissions, row-level security (RLS), authentication flows, and the exposure of sensitive financial data. He was extremely thorough and delivered exactly what I needed — a very positive experience. I'd highly recommend him to anyone building a new digital product who wants an experienced pair of eyes before going live.”
John Dutton
Founder, Collector Works
Read the WareSpace case study — what a 48-hour audit found, what changed, and 17 days to launch.
Fit
Who This Is For
- Designers and founders who built a working app with AI tools and want a professional review before inviting real users
- Non-technical builders handling sensitive data (financial records, personal information, documents) who need confidence the security model is sound
- Teams that have already shipped and feel every change getting slower — slow reviews, scary deploys, no visibility when things break
- Funded engineering teams that need an independent diagnosis before deciding whether a consequential production-AI problem needs more than a code review
- Anyone who's asked AI to check its own security work and realized they can't verify the answer
- Solo builders on Vercel, Supabase, Firebase, or similar stacks who want a go/no-go before beta
Still building? If you're earlier in the process and want help understanding what your AI tools are doing, check out Practical AI. Learn to work with AI tools confidently so there are fewer surprises when it's time for a review.
Need ongoing engineering leadership? If a one-time review isn't enough and you want architecture, technical direction, and shipped code on retainer, see Fractional CTO services — CTO-level leadership augmented by agents.
Comparison
AI Self-Check vs. Professional Vibe Code Audit
| Asking AI to check itself | Professional audit | |
|---|---|---|
| Security coverage | Surface-level, misses what it doesn't know to check | Deep review of auth, RLS, secrets, and data boundaries |
| Workflow coverage | Doesn't see how your team actually ships | Reviews PR process, deploy pipeline, CI/CD, and monitoring |
| Velocity over time | No view into what slows you down next month | Flags the workflow fixes that keep you shipping fast |
| Time to answer | Ongoing uncertainty | Clear go/no-go in 3–10 business days |
| Confidence level | "AI said it's fine" | Written report with prioritized, actionable fixes |
| Production patterns | Generic best-practice suggestions | Patterns from 15+ years of production software |
| Accountability | None — AI doesn't own the outcome | Named engineer with reputation and experience |
Why a human review
Why You Need a Human Review for AI-Generated Code
AI coding tools will eventually find most issues. The problem is "eventually." Every bug fix is an experiment: hypothesize, code, deploy, monitor, repeat. Without experience, that loop runs dozens of times. With it, you narrow the problem in minutes.
I've spent 15+ years building production software, including FDA-cleared medical device software in regulated environments. I know where vibe-coded apps break because I've seen where all apps break — in the security model and in the workflow that ships changes. The patterns are the same; the stakes are just higher when you can't see the code yourself.
The review isn't about judging how you built it. It's about making sure what you built is safe to ship — and that you can keep shipping.
Damian Galarza
Fractional CTO & AI Engineering Consultant
15+ years building production software. Former CTO who scaled an engineering team from 0 to 50+. Shipped FDA-cleared medical device software in regulated environments. Still building production AI systems and using AI coding tools every day.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
What access do you need for a Vibe Code Audit?
GitHub repo (read access), your hosting platform (Vercel, Netlify, etc.), and your database/backend (Supabase, Firebase, etc.). The exact requirements depend on your stack and are determined after the intro call.
What stacks do you review?
Most common vibe-coded stacks: Next.js, React, Vercel, Supabase, Firebase, Postgres, Node.js. If you're on something else, mention it on the intro call and I'll let you know.
Can you review our deploy process?
Yes. The deploy pipeline is part of the audit. I review how changes reach production, how long deploys take, what happens when one fails mid-way, whether you can roll back cleanly, and whether smoke tests catch problems before users do. You get specific, prioritized fixes.
What if we don't have CI/CD set up yet?
That's common, and it's exactly the kind of gap the audit surfaces. The review tells you what's worth automating first based on how you actually ship — not a generic checklist. You don't need CI/CD in place before the review.
How long does a Vibe Code Audit take?
Most audits land in 3-10 business days, depending on how complex your app is and how much of it needs review. We'll agree on scope and timeline on the intro call. The clock starts when I have access to everything I need.
How is pricing determined?
Audits start at $4,000. Each audit is scoped based on codebase size, architecture complexity, and the depth of review required — how many repositories are involved, which integrations are wired in, and whether the app handles payments or sensitive data. You'll receive a fixed price before the audit begins, and it doesn't change mid-review.
Will you fix the issues you find?
The audit deliverable is the written report. Every issue includes clear instructions for how to fix it, written so you can hand it to your AI coding tool or follow along yourself. If the audit identifies a problem larger than code review, it can provide a diagnostic starting point for a Foundation Sprint, which validates and hardens a consequential production-AI problem. A Production AI Retainer provides sustained implementation and technical leadership.
When does an AI-built app need a security audit?
If your app has user accounts and stores any user data, a review is worth it. If it handles financial data, personal information, or lets users share content with each other, it's essential. The intro call is free. We'll figure out the right scope together.
Get a Clear Answer Before You Launch
Book a free 30-minute intro call. We'll look at what you've built, figure out the right scope, and I'll tell you honestly whether you need a review or if you're good to go.
No pitch. No pressure. Just a conversation about your app.