How we work
Agency output. Boutique team.
Our engineering is AI-augmented end to end, and nothing reaches your store until it clears two blocking gates, and an engineer signs off on both. That's how a boutique team ships like a department without shipping like a bot.
Agents write fast. People decide.
- People
01Scope
- The engineers who'll do the work read your code and your catalog
- Written brief: outcome, constraints, versions
- Risk register before any estimate
- Agents + people
02Build
- Agents draft code, tests and migrations from the brief
- Engineers steer, reject and rewrite
- Every change lands as a reviewed pull request
- GatePeople
03Review gate
- An engineer reads every diff before it merges
- Agent output is never merged unreviewed
- Performance budget checked on every pull request
- GateAgents + people
04Security gate
- Static analysis and dependency audit on every build
- Secrets, PII and payment paths reviewed by hand
- Patch level verified against our own CVE list
- People
05Ship & run
- Staging first, then production on a release rhythm we agree up front
- Rollback plan written before the release
- Monitoring and patch alerts after
What agents do
Draft modules, tests, migrations, data mapping and documentation from a written brief. Run the boring checks on every build.
What people do
Read your business, decide the architecture, review every diff, own the release and answer for it. Every module we write ships with tests and a note on what it changes.
What never happens
Unreviewed agent code in production. Agents with write access to your store, your payments or your customer data.
Engagement models
Four ways in, and the same senior team behind all four. Pick by the problem, not the paperwork.
Project
Builds, replatforms, integrations and audits, scoped in writing before work starts.
Retainer
A standing team and a monthly budget for development, SEO and content, and platform care.
Fractional head of ecommerce
Senior ecommerce leadership, part time: roadmap, vendors, a P&L lens, and hands on the code when needed.
Emergency
Hacked, down or bleeding orders. Triage first: a written reply within one business day, then a plan.
A typical first month
| Week | What happens | You get |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Access, audit, catalog and analytics read | Risk register, version map |
| 2 | Brief and plan, estimate for phase one | Scope in writing |
| 3 | Build starts; first pull requests through both gates | Staging you can click |
| 4 | First production release | Release notes, rollback plan, monitoring |
Why a boutique team can ship like a department
Agencies usually scale by adding people, and every person adds a handoff. We scale with specialist agents instead. They draft the code, tests, migrations and documentation from a written brief and run the boring checks on every build. Senior engineers spend their time where judgment matters: architecture, review, security and the release.
That's how a boutique team runs a full-service ecommerce agency, covering all five service pillars, from builds and replatforms to AI for ecommerce, without passing you between departments. Want to judge the work before you hire us? Each backport we publish will be listed on our free Magento security patches hub and ship as a public repo that lists only the versions we tested it on.
White-label work for agencies
We take white-label ecommerce development work from other agencies. You sell the project. We build it under your agency's name, invisible to your client. Your client meets one agency: yours. You keep the relationship and the credit; we do the engineering behind it. That covers the build side of the services we offer: new stores, replatforms, upgrades and integrations.
It runs through the same process as our own work. Agents draft from a written brief, an engineer reads every diff before it merges, and nothing ships until it clears both blocking gates, code review and security.
The same no-names rule applies, too. We never name a client, so your agency and your client stay off our site, out of our proof lines and out of any case study.
Send the platform and the scope through the Talk Shop form, and we'll say plainly whether it fits.
FAQ
How does a boutique team deliver agency output?
Specialist AI agents draft the code, tests, migrations and documentation from a written brief, and senior engineers steer, review and own every release. Two blocking gates, code review and security, sit between any change and your store, and an engineer signs off on both. The engineers who scope your project build it and answer for the release. Agents add capacity; gates decide what ships.
Does a human review AI-written code?
Yes, every time. An engineer reads every diff before it merges, and agent output is never merged unreviewed. At the security gate, secrets, PII and payment paths are reviewed by hand. Agents never get write access to your store, your payments or your customer data.
Which engagement models do you offer?
Four: a project, scoped in writing before work starts; a monthly retainer for ongoing development, SEO and platform care; a fractional head of ecommerce for roadmap, vendors and a P&L lens; and emergency help for stores that are hacked, down or bleeding orders. The team is the same in all four.
What happens in the first month?
A typical first month: week one is access and an audit, which produces a risk register and a version map. Week two is a written brief with the scope for phase one. In week three the build starts and the first pull requests go through both gates. Week four is the first production release, with release notes, a rollback plan and monitoring.
Do you only work on Magento?
No. We're a full-service ecommerce agency. Magento has been home since Magento 1, and it's our deepest bench, on Open Source and Adobe Commerce alike. We're fluent everywhere else: we build, migrate, integrate and grow stores on Shopify and Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, headless Next.js and custom stacks. We recommend whichever platform your catalog, integrations and team need.