From
Scope of work
Developers to hire
Sheet
00 / 09
AI made code cheap.
Judgment is still scarce.
A model can write working code in minutes. Deciding what to build, how it should fit, and whether it’s safe to ship still takes experience. Here’s how the options compare.
Hire an engineering team
Months of recruiting
Agency or freelancers
Weeks of scoping
AI tools on your own
Today
Automaze Works
After readiness
Four stages,
two human gates.
You decide what gets built and what ships. Senior engineers make the engineering calls. The factory does the typing.
ST-01
You decide
Raise a ticket in plain words. The factory drafts a feature spec. You shape it and approve it.
Input
Your idea
Output
Approved feature spec
Owner
You
ST-02
We sign off
A senior engineer checks the technical plan and signs it — before a line of code is written.
Input
Feature spec
Output
Signed technical PRD
SLA
1 business day
ST-03
Factory builds
The factory builds against the signed plan, tests it, and deploys it to its own staging environment.
Input
Signed PRD
Output
Staging + proof video
Owner
The factory
ST-04
We review, you ship
A senior reviews the result and gives a written verdict. You test it, approve it, and the factory deploys.
Input
Staging + proof
Output
Verdict, then release
SLA
2 business days
Risky operations — auth, billing, data migrations, secrets — need an extra explicit approval. Every release runs health checks and rolls back if they fail.
Every change ships with the same five layers — so you approve the actual thing, not a description of it, and six months later anyone can see why it shipped.
01
Feature spec
What it does, in plain words. Approved by you.
01
02
Technical PRD
How it’s built. Signed by a senior engineer.
02
03
Working staging
Its own live environment you can click through.
03
04
Proof-of-work video
The agent records the change working.
04
05
Release verdict
Tests, security review, caveats, reviewer, date.
05
The factory doesn’t stop at deployment.
Ladybug watches production for real-world bugs. When an issue keeps coming back, it investigates and prepares a fix — which then goes through the same review as everything else.
01
Detect
Production error
Real users hit a bug or an edge case.
02
Filter
Recurring?
One-offs are filtered out. Recurring ones qualify.
03
Investigate
Root cause
Ladybug traces it and attempts a fix.
04
Govern
Fix PR, reviewed
Senior review and your approval. Never auto-shipped.
LB-031 · Detected by Ladybug
Checkout times out on Safari
Recurring · grouped from repeated events
Root cause found
Fix PR prepared
Staging + proof ready
Waiting for review
By the time you know there’s a problem, the fix may already be waiting for review.
No autonomous production changes. Every Ladybug fix goes through senior review and your ship approval.
Every ticket ends with something you can see.
Staging
App
API
DB
FIG. 05A
Working staging
Every completed ticket gets its own live environment. Click through the real thing.
Proof of work
AMZ-142 · 01:24
FIG. 05B
Proof-of-work video
The agent records the change working in staging, so you see it before you ship it.
Verdict
Release verdict · AMZ-142
Tests passed
Security review passed
Matches signed spec
Approved
FIG. 05C
Written verdict
A senior’s dated sign-off: what was checked, what’s known, and why it’s safe to ship.
“Buying a table saw doesn’t make you a carpenter. Having Claude Code doesn’t make you a software engineer. But a carpenter with a table saw builds in a day what used to take a week.”
Founder perspective · attribution pending
No scope of work.
The queue is the scope.
Two plans for two different needs — not a ladder. Both run on the same governed factory, with the same review on every change.
PL-01
Steady
$1,000
/ month
Engineering backup for a working product. Active builds the product. Steady watches its back.
+
Ladybug production monitoring; investigated issues become fix PRs
+
Bug fixes, security updates, occasional features
+
Senior sign-off and review on every change
+
Staging and proof video on every ticket
Talk about Steady
→
PL-02
WITH CTO
Active
$5,000
/ month
Continuous development with a CTO in your corner. No developers to hire.
+
Weekly CTO sync — product, architecture, UX; 2 extra CTO hours monthly
+
Continuous factory execution
+
Faster sign-off — 1 business day
+
Ladybug, staging and proof included
Book a Works call
→
PL-00
Factory Readiness
$5,000+
one-time
We make your product factory-ready — or build the foundation of a new one. Your plan starts when the first ticket runs.
+
Docs, tests, CI/CD and staging
+
A design system the factory builds UI from
+
Ladybug connected to production
+
Complex or new products: $10–15k, scoped first
Get a readiness check
→
FAQ
Anything else? Book a call — a senior engineer answers, not sales.
N.01
Who decides what ships?
N.02
Is AI-written code safe?
N.03
Does Ladybug change production by itself?
N.04
Where does the factory run? Who owns the code?
N.05
What happens during Factory Readiness?
N.06
Why not just hire a developer?