From working demo to production you can defend.
AI coding tools make it possible to ship a product in a weekend. They do not make it safe to put customer data behind it. ShipLabs reviews your application the way an attacker would, tells you plainly what is exposed, and then does the engineering work to close the gaps: authentication, data access, secrets, tests, and monitoring.
Not ready for an assessment yet? Start with our free production checklist.
Engagement Blueprint: Assess, Prioritize, Harden, Verify
Automated scanners produce long lists of low-value warnings and miss the logic flaws that actually leak data. We start with how your application is meant to work, then test whether it can be made to do something else.
Agrees targets and test environments in writing. Maps users, roles, data stores, third-party services, and AI tool calls to identify what an attacker would want and how they would reach it.
Reads auth middleware, API handlers, database policies, infrastructure config, and dependency manifests for flaws that tools cannot reason about.
Exercises the running app: swaps IDs between accounts, replays and tampers with requests, probes uploads, webhooks, and LLM prompts.
Fixes land as small, reviewed PRs with regression tests, so each change is understood and stays fixed.
Every finding is retested against the fix and marked closed, accepted, or deferred with a documented reason.
Application Security Assessment
The most damaging vulnerabilities are rarely exotic. They are an API route that returns another customer's invoice when you change a number in the URL, an admin endpoint that checks the role in the browser but not on the server, or a password-reset token that never expires.
We review source code and test the running application side by side, focusing on authentication, authorization and tenant isolation, injection and request forgery, file handling, payment and webhook integrity, and cloud permissions. Findings come with reproduction steps and a specific fix, not a generic recommendation.
Production Readiness for Vibe-Coded Apps
Apps generated with Cursor, Lovable, Bolt, v0, or Replit usually work on the happy path. The same patterns show up again and again: Supabase or Firebase tables with no row-level security, service keys in client bundles, business rules enforced only in React state, no rate limits on sign-up or AI endpoints, and no tests anywhere near billing.
We keep the parts that work and fix the foundations underneath them. That means moving authorization to the server, writing database access policies, rotating and relocating secrets, adding input validation with typed schemas, putting tests around critical flows, and setting up CI so the next AI-generated change cannot quietly undo the fix.
AI & LLM Feature Security
Chat interfaces, agents, and RAG pipelines add an attack surface that traditional reviews skip. A support bot that can be talked into revealing another user's order, or an agent whose tools run with full database privileges, is a data breach waiting for the right prompt.
We test for direct and indirect prompt injection, data leakage through retrieved context, over-privileged tool calls, and runaway token spend. Fixes draw on the same patterns we use in our own agentic workflow builds: scoped tool permissions, schema-validated outputs, and execution budgets.
Operational Hardening: Secrets, Infrastructure & Observability
Production readiness is more than closing vulnerabilities. You need to know when something breaks, recover when it does, and avoid a single leaked key becoming a full compromise.
We move secrets into a managed store, tighten cloud IAM and storage permissions, configure security headers and CORS, add dependency and secret scanning to CI, and set up structured logging, error tracking, and alerts. Backups are verified by restoring them, not just by confirming they exist.
What You Leave With
Every engagement ends with artifacts your team can act on and keep using after we leave.
Severity-ranked findings with affected code, reproduction steps, business impact, and a specific fix. Critical issues are reported the day we confirm them.
Fixes merged into your repository with regression tests and explanations, plus CI checks that keep the same class of bug from returning.
Alerts, dashboards, and short runbooks for key rotation, incident response, and restoring from backup, written for the team that will operate the app.
| Concern | Automated Scanner Only | Asking the AI to Fix It | ShipLabs Review & Hardening |
|---|---|---|---|
| Broken Access Control | Rarely detected; needs app context | Patches one route, misses the pattern | Server-side checks & database policies across every route |
| Leaked Secrets | Flags the string, not the exposure | Moves the key; old one stays valid | Rotation, managed secret store & CI scanning |
| Prompt Injection | Out of scope for most tools | Adds a “do not reveal” instruction | Scoped tool permissions & validated outputs |
| Regression Safety | Point-in-time result | Next generated change can undo the fix | Regression tests & CI gates on every PR |
| Operability | Not addressed | Not addressed | Logging, alerting, tested backups & runbooks |
Engagement FAQ
How security assessments and production hardening engagements work.
What does a security assessment actually cover?
We combine manual code review with hands-on testing of the running application. Scope typically includes authentication and session handling, authorization and tenant isolation, input handling (injection, XSS, SSRF), secrets and configuration, third-party dependencies, cloud and database permissions, and, for AI features, prompt injection and tool-permission boundaries. We agree the exact scope and test environment in writing before any testing begins.
Our app was built mostly with Cursor, Lovable, Bolt, or v0. Is that a problem?
No. AI-assisted tools are a fast way to reach a working product. They also tend to produce the same gaps: authorization checks that live only in the frontend, database tables without row-level security, API keys shipped to the browser, missing rate limits, and no tests around payment or data-deletion paths. We keep what works, fix what is unsafe, and avoid rewriting the app unless the code genuinely cannot be salvaged.
What do we receive at the end of an assessment?
A written report with every finding ranked by severity, the affected code or endpoint, steps to reproduce, and a concrete fix. Critical issues are flagged to you as soon as we confirm them, not held until the final report. If you engage us for hardening, we implement the fixes as reviewed pull requests and retest each one.
Do you need access to our production environment?
Not by default. We prefer read access to the repository plus a staging environment seeded with test data. If a production check is necessary, such as verifying cloud IAM policies or storage bucket permissions, we use least-privilege, time-boxed credentials that you issue and revoke.
Is this a compliance certification or a formal penetration test?
No. Our assessments are engineering reviews aimed at finding and fixing real weaknesses. They are useful preparation for SOC 2, ISO 27001, or a customer security questionnaire, but we do not issue certifications. If you need an accredited third-party penetration test, we can help you prepare for it and remediate its findings.
Find out what is exposed before your users do.
Tell us what you have built, who uses it, and what data it holds. We will propose a scope for an assessment, a hardening engagement, or both.
Schedule a Scoping Call
Book a 30-minute session to walk us through your stack, hosting, user roles, and the parts of the app you are least sure about:
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Send an Application Brief
Share your stack, how the app was built, and any launch or audit deadline. Please do not email credentials or secrets; we will arrange secure access:
Engineering Response within 12 Hours