Crash rescue
Your app keeps crashing. We find why, not just where.
A crash that only happens sometimes is worse than one that happens every time, because nobody can reproduce it on demand and every fix is really a guess. Most of what we find tracing these down isn't exotic: an unhandled promise rejection killing the whole Node process, a component throwing during render with no error boundary around it, a serverless function running past its timeout under real load instead of the light traffic it was tested on. We reproduce it first. We don't patch a symptom until we've seen the actual stack trace.
If you see this, this is you
The signals.
What they actually mean.
“The app crashes in production but never on your machine.”
Different load, different data, different timing. 'Works locally' means nothing about a race condition or a payload shape your local testing never produced.
“One component throws and the entire page goes white.”
React has supported error boundaries since version 16 specifically to contain this — a component that throws during render unmounts everything above it unless something catches it. Most vibe-coded apps have zero.
“The server process dies and the platform just restarts it, silently.”
An auto-restart hides the crash from you but not from the user who was mid-request when it happened. Nobody's looking at why it keeps happening because the symptom keeps disappearing on its own.
“A serverless function times out under real traffic, not under testing.”
Serverless functions have a hard execution ceiling. Code that's fine at 200ms locally can hit that ceiling once it's doing a real database round trip plus a third-party API call under production latency.
“An unhandled promise rejection takes down the whole process.”
Since Node.js 15, an unhandled rejection crashes the process by default instead of just logging a warning. Older tutorials and a lot of AI-generated code still assume the old, forgiving behavior.
“The crash only shows up for one specific type of user or input.”
Usually a null or undefined case nobody tested — the free-tier user, the empty cart, the account created before a schema change. The stack trace points at it immediately once we can reproduce it.
Our process
Five steps. 14 days.
Audit
We pull error logs, reproduce the crash locally against production-shaped data, and trace it to the actual line, not the last line in the stack trace that happens to be visible.
Triage
Keep, rewrite, delete. Crash-hunting usually skews 70/20/10 — most of the app is fine, the failure is concentrated in a handful of unguarded paths.
Foundation
Error boundaries added where React can throw. Promise rejections caught explicitly instead of relying on default behavior. Timeouts on anything calling a third-party API, with a real fallback instead of an unhandled hang.
Migration
We load-test the fix against traffic shaped like your real usage, not a happy-path smoke test, before calling it fixed.
Handoff
Documented, monitored — we set up basic error tracking if you don't have it, since a screenshot from a confused user shouldn't be your alerting system.
What we do with the code
Three piles. Honest splits.
Keep
70%Everything not on the crash path — most of the app was never the problem.
Rewrite
20%Unguarded render paths, unhandled async errors, anything calling a third party without a timeout.
Delete
10%Dead error-handling code that catches the wrong exception type and silently swallows the real one.
Verdict
Who this is for.
FAQ
Questions founders ask.
Can you fix a crash you can't reproduce yet?
We reproduce it first, against data and load shaped like production, not against a happy-path test. Most 'random' crashes reproduce reliably once the actual trigger condition is known.
Do we need full test coverage before you'll touch this?
No. We fix the crash, and we'll flag if a lack of tests is why it shipped in the first place — but that's a separate, optional conversation, not a prerequisite.
What if it's a third-party service failing, not our code?
Common, and still fixable on our side — the fix is usually a timeout and a fallback path, so a slow or down dependency degrades instead of taking your whole app with it.
How do you know you've actually fixed it, not just hidden it?
We reproduce the original trigger after the fix and confirm it no longer crashes, plus load-test the surrounding path. A restart that hides the symptom isn't a fix.
Can you set up monitoring so we catch the next one ourselves?
Yes, basic error tracking is part of the handoff by default if you don't already have it.
Ask anything
Got a question about crash rescue?
Frequent questions
Valery Satsura
CEO · Start Matter · usually replies in minutes
Hey, I'm Valery. Ask anything about crash rescue. I usually reply in minutes.
Engagement shape
This is one of our services.
Same engagement, on the services index: Vibe Code Rescue from $500. Quote in 24 hours, audit free for 48 hours.
Other ways we engage
Not ready for a full rescue?
Start smaller.
Vibe-coded rescue
Your AI-built MVP is breaking. We rebuild without throwing it away.
14 days · $500–$12.5K
Read the scenarioAgency transfer
Your dev team stopped shipping. We pick up where they failed.
14 days · $500–$15K
Read the scenarioLovable rescue
Lovable shipped fast. We fix what's actually broken underneath.
14 days · $500–$12.5K
Read the scenarioBolt.new rescue
Bolt shipped it in the browser. We fix what breaks outside it.
14 days · $500–$12.5K
Read the scenarioReplit Agent rescue
Replit Agent built it fast. We fix what it broke along the way.
14 days · $500–$12.5K
Read the scenarioCursor rescue
Cursor moved fast in your codebase. We check what it moved.
14 days · $500–$12.5K
Read the scenariov0 rescue
v0 built the UI. We build what it was never meant to.
14 days · $500–$12.5K
Read the scenarioClaude Code rescue
Claude Code followed most of your rules. We fix the rest.
14 days · $500–$12.5K
Read the scenarioWindsurf rescue
Windsurf doesn't exist anymore. The codebase it built still does.
14 days · $500–$12.5K
Read the scenarioFeature-velocity rescue
Every new feature breaks three old ones. We untangle why.
14 days · $500–$12.5K
Read the scenarioDatabase rescue
Your database is a mess. We fix it without losing data.
14 days · $500–$12.5K
Read the scenarioTest coverage rescue
Zero tests. We add coverage where a bug actually costs you.
14 days · $500–$12.5K
Read the scenarioPayments rescue
Stripe payments are broken. Usually it's the webhook layer.
10 days · $500–$8K
Read the scenarioCost rescue
Your bill tripled and nobody knows why. We find the leak.
7 days · $500–$6K
Read the scenario48-hour audit
Just the audit. No rebuild.
2 days · from $500
Written report on what your repo has and what it lacks. You decide who fixes it.
Request the auditOne feature
Ship a single feature.
1–2 weeks · $1.5K–$4K
Scoped to one workflow. Tests included. Your repo stays the way you left it.
Scope the featureFractional CTO
A senior in the room.
Monthly · from $1K
Architecture review, hiring help, code review on every PR. Half-day per week.
Start a conversationSend us the repo.
We reply in 48 hours.
Read-only GitHub access is fine. One-page audit comes back inside two days. No charge for the audit.