Taking Over a Legacy Project Without a Rewrite Theatre

Taking over a legacy project is a freeze, a build you can run, and a first release you are willing to sign — not a six-month rewrite sold as “modernisation.” The previous vendor leaving is not a strategy. Access, environments, and who can merge are.

CodeLoop Studio in Sarajevo takes over sites and software when we can own the next honest slice. Broader custom work is custom software development. Hosting is not a retainer — maintenance notes.

What a takeover is, and what it is not

A takeover starts with a repo that builds, credentials that are yours, and a list of what is on fire versus what is merely ugly. It is not a silent audit that becomes a cathedral. It is not a promise to “rewrite in the new stack” before anyone has shipped a patch users notice.

If the product is still a brochure, we will say so and point you at website development notes. If nobody can log in except the old contractor, that is an authentication problem first.

What we freeze before we touch production

• You hold the accounts. Domain, hosting, stores, GitHub. We work inside your orgs. A vendor login we cannot rotate is a lock, not a handover.

• A build that runs. If CI is folklore, we make a green build the first milestone. Code quality in delivery is review and pipeline, not a linter brand.

• One first release. A security patch, a form that arrives, a store listing that is true. Not a redesign of every screen because the palette is dated.

• No invented archaeology. We will not claim we “rescued” a product we have not opened. Operational software we can point at includes Hena Em — built here, not a takeover fairy tale.

When we will decline

If the only artefact is a ZIP on a USB stick and no one remembers the production host, that is a rebuild conversation, not a takeover. If you need us to impersonate the previous agency in a dispute, we will not. WordPress for a job it cannot do is when not WordPress.

Send access, not a novel

Repo URL, who can deploy today, and the next release that must not slip. Reply in 24 hours — online estimate or contact.