You built your ecommerce app with Bolt.new, Lovable, or Cursor. It works — mostly. But now you need it on Shopify, Magento, or a real production platform, and you're not sure what to check before, during, and after the move.

This checklist covers every step. Copy it, check it off, and migrate with confidence. Based on patterns from 50+ vibe-coded app audits where 83% of apps had no test coverage and 72% couldn't handle 50 concurrent users.

The Complete Vibe Code Migration Checklist

Pre-Migration Assessment (Before You Touch Anything)

  • [ ] Inventory your tech stack — Document every API, database, third-party service, and hosting dependency your vibe-coded app uses. Include Supabase, Stripe, Firebase, Vercel, or whatever your AI tool connected.
  • [ ] Export your product catalog — Download all product data (titles, descriptions, images, variants, prices, SKUs) in CSV format. Verify the export is complete — AI tools sometimes create duplicate entries or miss variant relationships.
  • [ ] Back up your entire codebase — Push to a private GitHub repo. Include environment variables (in a separate secure file), database schemas, and any custom configurations. You'll need this as reference during migration.
  • [ ] Document your custom logic — List every custom feature: discount rules, shipping calculations, inventory sync, email triggers. AI-generated code often buries business logic in unexpected places — check event listeners, middleware, and utility files.
  • [ ] Audit your customer data — Export customer accounts, order history, saved addresses, and payment tokens (if applicable). Verify PCI compliance requirements for your target platform before moving any payment data.
  • [ ] Screenshot your current UI — Capture every page, modal, and user flow. When rebuilding on the new platform, these screenshots become your design spec. Note any animations or interactions that might not transfer directly.
  • [ ] Test current performance baseline — Record page load times, checkout completion rates, and error rates. You need these numbers to verify the migration improved things (or at least didn't make them worse).

During Migration (The Actual Move)

  • [ ] Set up staging environment first — Never migrate directly to production. Create a staging store on your target platform (Shopify development store, Magento staging instance) and test everything there first.
  • [ ] Migrate products before customers — Products are simpler and let you verify your data pipeline works. Fix import errors here before touching customer data.
  • ] Rebuild payment integrations from scratch — Do NOT copy-paste Stripe/PayPal code from your vibe-coded app. AI-generated payment handling has critical vulnerabilities in [94% of apps we've audited. Use the target platform's native payment integrations instead.
  • [ ] Recreate shipping and tax rules — Shipping calculators and tax rules from AI tools rarely transfer cleanly. Configure them natively on your new platform using its built-in tools or certified apps.
  • [ ] Migrate order history — Import past orders with correct statuses (fulfilled, refunded, pending). Customers expect their order history to survive the move.
  • [ ] Set up redirects for every URL — Map every old URL to its new equivalent. A single missed redirect means lost SEO authority and broken bookmarks. Include product pages, collection pages, and any blog content.
  • [ ] Test the checkout flow 5+ times — Complete real test purchases with different payment methods, shipping addresses, and discount codes. The checkout is where vibe-coded apps fail most — make sure your new implementation handles edge cases (international addresses, partial refunds, abandoned cart recovery).
  • [ ] Verify email triggers — Order confirmation, shipping notification, abandoned cart — test every automated email. AI tools often configure email through third-party services that won't automatically transfer.

Post-Migration Verification (Before Going Live)

  • [ ] Run a full link audit — Check every internal link, image source, and script reference. Broken assets are the #1 issue in the first 24 hours after migration.
  • [ ] Load test with realistic traffic — Simulate 100+ concurrent users (tools: k6, Artillery, or Loader.io). If your vibe-coded app couldn't handle 50 users, verify your new platform can handle your projected traffic.
  • [ ] Verify mobile responsiveness — Test on actual devices (not just browser dev tools). AI-generated CSS often breaks on real mobile screens in ways that browser simulation misses.
  • [ ] Check SEO elements — Verify meta titles, descriptions, canonical URLs, sitemap, and robots.txt are correct on the new platform. One wrong robots.txt entry can deindex your entire store.
  • [ ] Test analytics tracking — Confirm Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, and any conversion tracking fires correctly on the new platform. Revenue attribution breaks silently.
  • [ ] Monitor for 72 hours post-launch — Watch error logs, checkout completion rates, and page load times. Most migration bugs surface within the first 3 days.

How to Use This Checklist

Copy the checklist above into your project management tool (Notion, Trello, Asana, or even a Google Doc). Assign each item to your migration team member responsible.

Timeline estimate:

  • Simple store (under 100 products, no custom features): 1-2 weeks
  • Medium store (100-1,000 products, some custom logic): 2-4 weeks
  • Complex store (1,000+ products, custom integrations, subscription billing): 4-8 weeks

For a detailed walkthrough of each step, see our complete migration guide.

The 3 Items Most People Skip (And Regret)

1. Payment integration rebuild. Founders copy Stripe code from their vibe-coded app because "it was working." It was working *despite* vulnerabilities your customers couldn't see. Rebuild from the platform's native integration.

2. URL redirects. Every URL you miss is a page that returns a 404 to Google and your customers. If you had any SEO traction, redirects preserve it. No redirects = starting from zero.

3. The 72-hour monitoring window. Migration bugs are time bombs. They don't all explode on launch day. Cart abandonment spikes on day 2, inventory sync breaks on day 3, a shipping rule miscalculation surfaces when someone orders internationally. Watch the numbers, don't just launch and celebrate.

When to Hire Help Instead

This checklist works if you have some technical ability and a relatively straightforward store. But if any of these apply, consider professional migration support:

  • Your app has custom payment logic (subscriptions, split payments, marketplace payouts)
  • You're migrating more than 1,000 products with complex variant structures
  • You have active customers who can't experience any downtime
  • Your vibe-coded app has 3+ third-party integrations that need to reconnect
  • You've already attempted migration once and it failed

Our migration service handles the entire checklist end-to-end — typically completing in 5-10 business days what takes solo founders 4-8 weeks. Get a migration assessment →