StartupENGINEERING
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Decision skill · FreeFit Loop

Taking your product back from an agency

How do you take your product back from an agency without breaking it — code, accounts, knowledge, and all?

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Version 1.0 · Plain text · No email required · CC BY-SA 4.0

What this skill does

Hand this file to Claude or ChatGPT. The assistant interviews you, one question at a time, through this decision's determining questions — on your specifics. It then applies the decision rules to your answers and gives you the recommendation plainly, with the conditions under which it would change.

The decision it executes
Taking your product back from an agency

The complete handoff inventory — code, credentials, infrastructure, documentation, tribal knowledge — and the sequencing that keeps the product running while ownership moves.

The guide is the canonical version: determining questions, paths with dated costs, what I'd do, and limits. It belongs to The Fit Loop.

Escalation clause
An honest tool knows its edges.

This decision stops being self-serve — and needs a human with scars in the room — when:

  • Disputed IP or unpaid invoices — this is a legal matter first; lawyer, then checklist. Running the checklist mid-dispute can weaken the founder's position.
  • Regulated data (health, finance, or similar) — the transfer method itself is constrained; compliance advice comes before the move.
  • White-label or proprietary platforms — there may be far less to hand over than the founder thinks; the real question is contractual exit terms, not code transfer.
When this skill revises
Optional. The download never depends on it.

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