From first call to shipping, week by week.
How AI-native, production-grade software actually gets built, week by week. No SOW theatre. No demoware shipped to staging. No surprises in week three. The full mechanics of a Stacklane engagement, what we deliver, and what we need from you at each step.
Week 0
01Discovery call
30 minutes with the founder or a senior engineer. We listen, ask sharp questions, and either say yes with a start date or tell you straight that Stacklane isn't the right fit. No deck, no homework.
What lands
A yes or a no, plus a written summary of what we heard.
What you do
Show up. Bring your real problem, not a polished pitch.
Day 1
02Onboarding day
Half-day kickoff, on-site in your office if you're in the Netherlands or on a long video call if you're not. Repo access, tooling, decision authority, comms cadence, success metrics. We leave with a green build and a working backlog.
What lands
Green CI on a new branch, agreed backlog, signed contract.
What you do
Hand over repo + tool access. Name your single point of contact.
Week 1
03Shape and first commits
We shape the highest-leverage item end-to-end before writing infrastructure. The first commit lands within 48 hours of kickoff. The first demoable feature lands by Friday of week 1.
What lands
First feature live in your staging environment.
What you do
Review on Friday, redirect if priorities shifted.
Weeks 2 to 4
04Daily ship cadence
Commits land every working day. Weekly demo on a fixed slot, async standup every morning. We hold the line on quality (tests, types, audit trails), and we route ambiguity to you the day it appears, not the day before launch.
What lands
Progress visible in your repo every working day.
What you do
Answer one async question per day on average. Approve weekly demos.
Monthly
05Demo + retrospective
End-of-month walkthrough of what shipped, what's queued, and what's at risk. Honest retrospective on what worked and what we'd do differently. Renewal happens automatically; if you want to pause, you say so by the 25th.
What lands
Written monthly report, retrospective notes, next-month plan.
What you do
60 minutes for the demo and retro.
Anytime
06Pause mechanics
Roadmap slowed down? Pause the subscription with 7 days' notice before the next billing date. We hand off in-flight work, freeze the branch, and clear our calendar for you. Resume the month you need us, same team where possible.
What lands
Handoff doc, frozen branches, calendar release.
What you do
Email by the 25th of the month. One sentence is enough.
Anytime
07Scale up or down
Add a second engagement (engineering + design, or two engineering lanes). Drop back to a single lane when the launch is past. Month-over-month, no recontracting. The team you started with stays consistent.
What lands
Updated invoice from the next billing cycle.
What you do
Confirm the new shape in writing. Same email thread.
Eventually
08Exit and handoff
When you've built an in-house team or the project's done, we hand off cleanly. Architecture decision records, ops runbooks, named owner notes per module, two weeks of overlap with your in-house engineers. No silent code, no surprise dependencies.
What lands
Handoff pack, two-week overlap, named contact for follow-ups.
What you do
Introduce us to your in-house owner. We do the rest.
Three things that never change across engagements.
- AI in the loop, senior judgment on top
- AI accelerates the work; senior engineers own the architecture, the review, and what ships. Every PR has a human owner with their name on it.
- Production-grade, every commit
- Tests, types, audit trails, observability. Real software, not demoware. If a feature isn't production-shaped, it doesn't merge.
- Pause anytime, 7-day notice
- Subscription, not statement of work. No 6-month contracts, no notice-period penalties. You pay for the month, you decide if there's a next one.
Ready for week zero?
30 minutes with the founder or a senior engineer. We scope what you need this quarter and tell you straight whether Stacklane fits.
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