Who owns your code? Find out in three minutes.
You own your app when the code repository, hosting, domain, database, and payment accounts sit under logins you control. If any of those live in your developer’s accounts, you are renting. This free 16-question check grades all six ownership dimensions and generates the exact handoff list to send your developer.
Code access
Is the source code in a repo you control, with admin access, and could you get the latest copy today?
Database and data
Who owns the database account, do you hold a backup you control, and could you export your users today?
Deploy and hosting
Whose Vercel/hosting account runs the app, and can anyone but your developer ship a change?
Domain and DNS
Who holds the registrar login and who can change where your domain points?
Third-party accounts and billing
Stripe, email, AI keys: whose accounts, whose cards, and where does the money land?
Knowledge and docs
Are the secrets written down, is there a runbook, and does anyone but one person know how it works?
16 questions, about 3 minutes. No signup, no email, nothing leaves your browser.
Your developer left, or is leaving
Agency wrapping up, freelancer moving on, cofounder walking away. Before the last conversation happens, know exactly what to ask for. The demand list this tool generates is that ask, ordered by what you cannot recover later.
You built it with AI and never checked
Lovable, Bolt, Cursor, v0, Replit: the app works, users are in it, and you have never once asked where the code actually lives or whose card keeps the database alive. Three minutes here tells you whether you own a product or a login.
Do I own the code my developer or agency wrote?
Legally, that depends on your contract: without a written work-for-hire or IP assignment clause, the developer may retain copyright even though you paid. Practically, ownership is control: if the repo, hosting, domain, database, and payment accounts are under accounts you own, you can operate and hand off the product regardless of who wrote it. This grader measures the practical side. For the legal side, have a lawyer read your agreement.
My developer left. What should I do first?
First, secure a complete copy of the code and a full export of your production data, today, before anything else. Then work through access in this order: repository, hosting account, domain and DNS, database, payment account, and the environment variables the app needs to run. The grader generates a printable demand list covering exactly these items, and rotating all secrets once handoff completes should be the final step.
What do I own if I built my app with Lovable, Bolt, or another AI builder?
You typically own the code the platform generated for you, but by default it lives inside their platform. Real ownership starts when you sync or export the code to a GitHub repository under your own account, confirm the builder account login and billing are yours, and take your own export of any platform-managed database. Until then you can use the product but you could not leave with it.
Does this quiz send my answers anywhere?
No. The grader runs entirely in your browser. Your answers are encoded into the link after the # symbol so you can share or bookmark your result, and nothing is stored on a server. No email is required to see your full result.
What is a handoff demand list?
It is the exact list of accesses, transfers, and documents to request from a departing developer or agency: repository transfer, hosting project transfer, domain and DNS access, database ownership, a data export, environment variables, and a runbook. The grader builds yours automatically from the gaps in your answers, triaged into blocking, urgent, and can-wait, so you can send it as-is.