Should’ve Audited First: Real-World Risks of Launching Vibe‑Coded Apps Without a Safety Check

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In 2025, AI-assisted coding tools like Replit, Cursor, and Lovable have made it possible to build functional prototypes in days instead of months. For startups and innovators, that’s a breakthrough. But when those prototypes jump straight into production without a proper audit, things tend to fall apart fast.

At Sourcetoad, we’ve reviewed multiple projects that followed this same path: fast build, impressive demo, successful pilot,  and then major problems once users, data, and scale entered the picture. None of them failed because the teams lacked vision or technical skill. They failed because they skipped the safety check.

This post looks at what happens when “vibe‑coded” apps go live without an audit, what kinds of risks these tools introduce, and how to bring them safely into production without losing the speed that made them exciting in the first place.

We’ve seen this pattern across several real projects. Each began as a well‑intentioned prototype that grew into something customer‑facing,  but never made the jump from “sandboxed experiment” to “managed system.”

In one project, what started as a small AI‑assisted prototype grew to thousands of files,  many autogenerated, with assets, exports, and logs mixed directly into source control. The lack of a .gitignore file alone added hundreds of megabytes of noise, making version control and deployment nearly impossible. The team couldn’t tell what was important or safe to delete.

When systems are built inside environments like Replit or Cursor, they hide this complexity until it’s too late. What feels organized in a prototype often becomes unmanageable at production scale.

Another common failure mode is hardcoded credentials. We’ve found admin logins, default passwords, and “emergency user” logic that creates backdoors when authentication fails. These shortcuts are easy to overlook in development, but they represent catastrophic security vulnerabilities once real data is involved.

Worse, they’re often accompanied by silent fallback logic, where a missing environment variable causes a system to spin up with default credentials or tokens. These issues aren’t hypothetical; they show up again and again in vibe‑coded projects.

Some systems are designed to “never fail.” If a PDF export breaks, for example, the app might just write a text file with the same name and extension, so users think it succeeded. The result? Corrupted files and missing audit trails.

These patterns are common in AI‑generated or auto‑repaired code. The goal is to avoid user‑visible failure, but the cost is invisible data loss or silent corruption, the worst possible kind of bug for systems handling real customer data.

Many vibe‑coded apps assume they’ll live in a single‑instance environment where everything writes to local disk. Once you move to the cloud, AWS, Azure, or otherwise,  that assumption collapses. File exports and uploads end up written to ephemeral containers, breaking across deployments or exposing public data directories without authentication.

In one case, every export was stored under /public/exports, meaning anyone with a browser could access them. These aren’t theoretical risks, they’re recurring patterns we see in vibe‑coded production systems.

Perhaps the most widespread issue: deployment dependency. Systems tightly coupled to their sandbox environment (like Replit) can’t easily migrate to real infrastructure. Hardcoded ports, localhost dependencies, and scripts built for single‑threaded servers all need rewriting.

Replit and similar tools are great for prototyping, but they don’t enforce the software‑development‑lifecycle (SDLC) discipline required for secure, maintainable systems. They encourage creation, not production hardening.

Audits aren’t about gatekeeping speed or creativity. They’re about catching what AI and auto‑generation can’t: human context, infrastructure realities, and the edge cases that make software safe and stable.

• • Hardcoded secrets and “emergency admin” logic
  • Publicly accessible export or upload directories
  • Missing session hardening (secure, httpOnly, sameSite)
  • Inconsistent authentication or authorization patterns
  • Over‑permissioned service roles and cloud misconfigurations

• • Mixed module formats (CJS, ESM, TS, JSX)
  • Oversized route files and unmaintainable code structures
  • Missing .gitignore hygiene
  • Local‑filesystem dependencies that fail in containerized or load‑balanced environments

• • AI‑generated “hallucinated” markdown files or boilerplate documentation
  • Test files that are incomplete, random, or misleading
  • No clear deployment process or rollback strategy
  • No reproducible build pipeline or version tagging

• • Logs and backups stored alongside source code
  • Unencrypted sensitive data in development branches
  • Lack of clear data retention and access policies

We’ve built a structured audit and remediation process for vibe‑coded systems that need to become production‑grade:

1. 1. Kickoff & Code Peek (Free) A light first look to assess code structure, scale, and risk areas.
   2. Security & Engineering Audit Deep dive into authentication, export logic, file handling, and deployment assumptions.
   3. Findings Review We meet to explain the results and prioritize remediation based on real‑world impact.
   4. Remediation Plan Focused fixes for the issues that actually block deployment, starting with security‑critical items.
   5. Cloud Migration & CI/CD Setup Move the app into GitHub with controlled deployment pipelines, environment separation, and stable infrastructure (AWS, Azure, or GCP).

The result: you keep the speed and creativity of AI‑assisted prototyping, but you launch with the reliability and discipline of a production‑ready product.

A vibe audit is a small investment that prevents major rework. Fixing a security flaw or architecture issue after going live can cost 5–10x more than fixing it before launch, not to mention the reputational cost of downtime or data exposure.

An audit signals maturity to clients, investors, and internal teams alike. It says: we build fast, but we build safely.

• • Before onboarding real users or customers
  • Before storing or processing personal data
  • Before migrating from Replit, Cursor, or similar environments
  • After major architectural changes or feature expansions
  • Before funding rounds, compliance certification, or enterprise pilots

AI‑assisted development is transforming how teams build software, but prototypes aren’t products. If you’re building something meant to handle real users, data, or transactions, it’s not enough that it “just works.”

A short audit now can save months of pain later. Before you hit deploy, take a breath, check your foundation, and make sure your vibe‑coded creation is ready for the real world.

What is a vibe‑coded app? An app built quickly using AI‑assisted or sandbox environments like Replit, Cursor, or Lovable,  typically without traditional SDLC controls.

When does a vibe project need an audit? As soon as it handles real users, data, or payments. Prototypes are fine without audits; production systems are not.

 How long does an audit take? A typical audit takes 1–2 weeks depending on the codebase size and deployment complexity.

Can Sourcetoad help migrate my app from Replit or Cursor? Yes. We establish a GitHub‑based source of truth, configure CI/CD pipelines, and prepare your app for AWS, Azure, or GCP deployment.

 Do audits replace penetration testing? No. Code audits focus on architecture and security posture; pen tests simulate attacks. You often need both before launch.