{"head":{"title":"How to Hand Over a Software Project to a New Team | OceanLab","description":"A good handover moves code, accounts, documentation, knowledge and open work to the new team. Built by OceanLab, an enterprise software engineering studio.","canonical":"https://oceanlab.in/questions/how-to-hand-over-a-software-project"},"crumbs":[{"name":"Home","path":"/"},{"name":"Questions","path":"/questions"},{"name":"How do I hand over a software project?","path":"/questions/how-to-hand-over-a-software-project"}],"question":"How do I hand over a software project?","answer":["Move four things on purpose: access (code, hosting, domains, third-party accounts and secrets), documentation (architecture, setup, deployment, runbooks), knowledge (walkthroughs with the people who built it) and open work (bugs, debt and plans). Plan the handover with time where both teams overlap, not as a single file dump."],"sections":[{"heading":"Handover checklist","body":[],"bullets":[["Repository with full history, and the right to use all the code under the contract."],["Admin access to hosting, databases, domains, DNS, app stores, email and every third-party service, with credentials rotated afterwards."],["Setup guide: how to run the project locally, test it and deploy it."],["Architecture overview, data model and list of integrations."],["Runbooks for incidents, backups and restores."],["Open issues, known ",{"href":"/glossary/technical-debt","text":"technical debt"}," and the roadmap."],["Recorded walkthrough sessions and a short period where the old team answers questions."]]},{"heading":"Make it easy from the start","body":[["The cheapest handover is one prepared for from day one: accounts in the client's name, automated deployments and documentation kept up as the code changes. Ask for this in the contract."]],"bullets":[]}],"faqs":[{"question":"What if the old vendor will not cooperate?","answer":"Check the contract's IP and handover clauses. If you hold the repository and accounts, a new team can usually work it out from the code, more slowly."},{"question":"How long should a handover overlap last?","answer":"Long enough for the new team to deploy a change and handle a small incident with the old team available. It depends on system size."},{"question":"Should the new team audit the code first?","answer":"Yes. A short audit sets realistic expectations about quality, risks and how fast changes will go."}],"terms":[{"href":"/glossary/technical-debt","label":"technical debt"},{"href":"/glossary/total-cost-of-ownership","label":"total cost of ownership"}],"tools":[],"links":[{"href":"/glossary/handover","label":"Handover","detail":"Glossary"},{"href":"/glossary/source-code-escrow","label":"Source code escrow","detail":"Glossary"},{"href":"/embedded-engineers","label":"Embedded engineers","detail":"OceanLab engineers working inside your team."}],"related":[{"href":"/questions/who-owns-the-code","label":"Who owns the code when you hire a software agency?","detail":"Question"},{"href":"/questions/how-to-avoid-vendor-lock-in","label":"How do I avoid vendor lock-in?","detail":"Question"},{"href":"/questions/who-pays-for-hosting-after-launch","label":"Who pays for hosting after launch?","detail":"Question"},{"href":"/compare/ai-agent-vs-workflow-automation","label":"AI agent vs workflow automation","detail":"Comparison"},{"href":"/compare/rag-vs-fine-tuning","label":"RAG vs fine-tuning","detail":"Comparison"},{"href":"/glossary","label":"Glossary","detail":"Every term, in plain words."}],"sources":[],"legal":false,"updatedAt":"2026-10-25"}