Check these before deploying to production

The "Engineer" Guide to Shipping

You’ve been in the flow state.

You and Cursor (or Lovable, or Replit) just spent three hours vibecoding a masterpiece. It works on your machine. The vibes are immaculate.

But here’s the cold, hard truth: Local-host vibes do not equal production reality.

Moving from a "vibe-coded repo" to a live app used by real humans is where the 'vibe’ lifestyle meets the brick wall of adulting.

If you’re thinking about hitting that "Deploy" button, here is the non-negotiable checklist to ensure your dream doesn't become a 2:00 AM nightmare.

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1. Security: Stop Playing "Stripe Key Roulette" 🎰

In the vibecoding world, AI is a "polite guesser."

It’s probabilistic.

But production security must be deterministic.

• The Risk: AI doesn't always remember to .gitignore your secrets. One leaked AWS or Stripe key and you aren't just "buggy"—you’re one step away from bankruptcy.

• The Fix: You need rigid, deterministic scans for exposed secrets, open ports, and IAM policy diffs. Don't ask the AI "is this secure?" because it will probably just say "Yes, boss!" even if the front door is wide open.

2. Vendor Lock-in: The Graduation Path 🎓

Tools like Lovable and Replit are incredible for spinning up prototypes, but they can become expensive or "context-lite" as you grow.

• The Risk: Getting stuck in a sandbox where you don't actually own your infrastructure or your "graduation path" to a professional workflow is blocked.

• The Fix: Ensure your code is synced to GitHub. A real product needs to live in a repository where you inherit control, audit trails, and the ability to move to any cloud provider you want.

3. Scalability: The "Reddit Hug of Death" 📈

Your app works for you. Will it work for 5,000 people hitting it at once?

• The Risk: Basic "vibe" deploys often lack horizontal scaling, proper networking, or database indexing.

• The Fix: You need to think about Infrastructure as Code. You need auto-scaling that handles traffic hits while you sleep, without you having to manually tweak cloud configs for three days.

4. Cost: Don't Compromise Your Burn Rate 💸

• The Risk: In the rush to go live, it’s easy to misconfigure resources and wake up to a $2,000 surprise from your cloud provider.

• The Fix: You need estimated cost maintenance based on your traffic expectations before you deploy, not after.

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Good news is you can do it all with some time and effort in hand.

DIY Way: Spend your weekend learning Docker, cloud networking, SOC 2 compliance, and IAM roles. Hope you didn't miss a single bracket in your .yaml file.

Better news is your can let VibeOps drive it.

The VibeOps Way: Use the missing "Productionization + DevOps layer" for AI code.

VibeOps acts as your AI Production Engineer.

We connect to your GitHub, run deterministic security checks (giving you a Readiness Score), catch your "slop" or leaked keys, and handle the entire infrastructure setup—all while you keep vibing.

Code with vibes. Deploy with logic.

Check out VibeOps.tech and get your Production Readiness Score in 90 seconds. Good luck!