Do I get the source code when you build my software?
May 25, 2026 1 min read
Yes — all of it, on handover, with the migrations and the deployment notes. You can hire anybody to work on it afterwards, including somebody who is not us.
What "all of it" means
The application code, the database migrations that create the schema from nothing, the seed data, the environment file template, and a written note of every third-party account the system needs. That last one is the one people forget, and it is what turns a handover into a hostage situation.
Why some studios do not do this
Because a client who cannot leave does not negotiate. Withholding source code, hosting the system on an account you do not control, or building on a proprietary framework only that studio knows are three versions of the same tactic.
It is also bad business. Work that has to be kept behind a lock is work that could not survive being looked at.
What we keep
Nothing that is yours. We reuse our own internal libraries across projects — the things that are not specific to your business — and those come to you under a licence that lets you keep using and modifying them forever. What we do not do is claim your business logic as ours.
