ShipLock
BuildingA client delivery protection system for dev studios — scope locking, AI drift detection, signed client review links, and a full audit trail so “that's not what we asked for” becomes impossible.
The brief. Seven months into a client engagement, our team hit a wall: a 40-page requirements document, four weeks to deliver everything, salaries on hold, and no way to prove what was agreed versus what was added. The client said “that's not what we asked for.” We had no system to say otherwise.
The real problem. Nobody locked anything. Requirements lived in WhatsApp threads and meeting notes. Demos happened but approvals never did. Scope expanded by roughly 300% — invisibly, incrementally, with no paper trail. The failures were structural, not technical. There was no system enforcing alignment between what was agreed and what was expected.
The approach. I built ShipLock from that pain — not imagined problems. It sits on top of an existing workflow and enforces one principle: nothing exists unless it is documented, acknowledged, and traceable. AI extracts and locks requirements. Demos route through a signed approval pipeline. Scope changes get flagged and costed before a single line of code is written. The audit trail is the product.
Core mechanics
Upload the brief. AI extracts every requirement into a trackable item with a unique ID. Client approves or disputes each one.
48-hr rule: no response = auto-approved. Silence becomes consent.
Record a demo. Send it. Client watches, comments, and signs off — or rejects with a reason. Every demo becomes a timestamped approval record.
Same 48-hr rule. "We showed it" is now a documented fact, not a he-said-she-said.
Scope change detected
YouTube integration not in approved scope · Est. +18 days
Paste any meeting note or email. AI scans for drift and flags anything outside the approved scope, then forces a timeline-impact estimate before work begins.
Client must acknowledge the impact. No acknowledgement, no work.
Every client-facing send starts a timer. Green → yellow at 24h → red at 48h → auto-escalation at 72h. A visual record of responsiveness, always visible.
Real-time view of what's blocked and by whom. "Blocked by Client" isn't accusatory — it's factual. When an exec asks why the project is late, the answer is on a dashboard.