Your AI-Built App Broke After Launch: The 30-Minute Post-Mortem

Description and use

The 30‑minute post‑mortem workflow quickly identifies and fixes failures in AI‑generated apps by comparing them to real production software and deciding whether to keep or retire the app.

Problem

AI-generated applications often fail in production after launch due to missing production‑grade behavior such as error handling, state persistence, and input validation.

Outcome

The post‑mortem framework reduces repair time to 30 minutes, enables rapid identification of missing production behaviors, and informs a clear decision on whether to continue or replace the AI‑built app.

Workflow

• Reproduce the break by documenting exact steps and expected vs actual outcome.
• Diff against a real installed program to discover missing production behaviors.
• Rebuild the single broken path using the insights from the diff.
• Make a keep‑or‑retire decision based on the fix’s stability and future risk.
• Document the fix and ownership for future reference.

Evidence

The demo always works. Stakes are zero, the input is clean, one user, one pass down the happy path.

Source

The missing pieces weren't omitted by the model; they were omitted by the description.

Source

Ask the agent what an app that does this job for a living has that yours doesn't.

Source

Rebuild that path, then run the exact reproduction from step 1 as the acceptance test.

Source