Ruby on Rails support and maintenance

A support partner for the Rails application you already have

Your application may still serve the business well while becoming harder to maintain. A supplier has moved on, knowledge sits with one developer, upgrades keep slipping or recurring faults interrupt your team. You need to understand the risks and establish who will deal with them.

We take over Rails applications built by other teams and support existing engineering teams with maintenance and improvements. We start with the system you have: its users, code, integrations, hosting and the work it supports.

For Serious Readers, we took over a bespoke Rails e-commerce application after the previous agency lost its Rails developer. We upgraded the code, improved the hosting architecture and repaired unreliable ERP integration, then continued with ongoing support and feature improvements.

Taking over without losing the knowledge you need

An orderly handover gives everyone a shared understanding of what is running, how changes reach production and where the urgent risks are. We agree the takeover work with you and, where available, your existing supplier or technical team.

1. Understand the service: identify critical user journeys, current incidents, integrations, business deadlines and the people responsible for decisions.
2. Review the application and operations: assess the code, tests, dependencies, hosting, access, deployment process and available documentation. Record gaps that need investigation.
3. Agree the transition: prioritise urgent fixes, establish support responsibilities and escalation, and plan knowledge transfer before ongoing work begins.

Limited documentation or an unavailable former developer changes the assessment needed. We make that uncertainty visible before committing to the scope and timing of a takeover.

What ongoing Rails support can cover

• Ruby, Rails and dependency updates: review support status, identify compatibility work and plan upgrades around the application’s risks and release constraints.
• Faults and security maintenance: investigate reported problems, assess relevant vulnerability fixes and prioritise work with your team.
• Monitoring and performance: agree what needs monitoring, investigate slow requests or background jobs, and use findings to guide improvements.
• Technical debt and test coverage: repair fragile areas and strengthen tests around important behaviour before making further changes.
• Features and integrations: improve the existing product and its connections to payment, ERP and other services alongside maintenance.

The mix depends on your application and agreed priorities. For a defined framework or dependency upgrade alongside your own team, see our software and security upgrade service.

Clear ownership, coverage and communication

Our flexible retainer gives you access to the engineering, QA, technical leadership, design and DevOps expertise relevant to the work. We can take responsibility for an agreed support scope or work alongside your internal team. We agree the allocation and review it as priorities change.

Before support begins, we establish:

• who owns the application, infrastructure and third-party services;
• how issues are raised, prioritised and escalated;
• support hours, response expectations and any out-of-hours arrangements;
• who reviews and approves production changes; and
• how progress, remaining risks and upcoming maintenance are reported.

Monitoring and incident coverage are agreed for your service. Documentation and knowledge transfer form part of the agreed work so your team can understand changes and support future handovers. Our technical assurance approach explains how we scope security, testing and operational responsibilities.

Start with the application’s most pressing needs

An initial conversation covers what the application does, who maintains it, the problems affecting your team and any deadlines. From there, we can agree whether a technical assessment, a planned handover or a defined piece of maintenance is the right first step.

Costs and timing depend on the condition of the code, integrations, support coverage and work required. We use the initial findings to agree priorities, estimates and review points with you.