Yes, Xylora Studios routinely takes over existing or stalled projects from former agencies, freelance contractors, and internal teams. Transitions are managed across our Technology, Creative, and Operations departments following an audit of your existing assets.
What you must supply
To evaluate whether we can adopt your existing codebase, design files, or active infrastructure, you must provide direct administrative access to the underlying assets. We do not conduct feasibility reviews using forwarded summaries, recorded walkthroughs, or static screenshots.
Depending on the discipline, you must supply the following materials:
- Technology projects: Direct administrative access to source code repositories (such as GitHub or GitLab), cloud hosting environments, database clusters, domain management records (DNS), third-party API consoles, and software licence registries.
- Creative projects: Native master production files containing editable layers, intact vector paths, and linked assets (such as original Figma files or Adobe master documents), along with raw production footage and brand guidelines.
- Operational context: A documented list of known production bugs, accumulated technical debt, outstanding supplier obligations, and third-party contract renewal deadlines.
If your departing supplier holds primary ownership of these accounts, you must formally direct them to transfer administrative control to your organisation first. Studio staff will not negotiate directly with your previous supplier to obtain access.
Assessment and quotation timelines
Every project takeover begins with a structural audit to determine the integrity of the inherited work.
- Enquiry logging: Our first reply target is within 24 hours during standard operational hours, which run Monday to Thursday, 09:00 to 17:00 GMT. Enquiries are submitted via the Ask Xylo chat on this portal.
- Bespoke quotations: Bespoke quotes are issued within 48 hours of receiving a complete brief and working credentials to the source assets. Standardised scopes or routine maintenance requests can be compared directly against our fixed offerings on the packages page.
- Referred clients: Clients introduced via an existing partner typically receive between 10% and 30% off standard pricing, confirmed in writing on the quote. The original referrer earns commission on the engagement through our ambassador programme.
- Deposits are non-refundable once your production slot is held. Before work begins, sums not yet earned are refunded pro rata; after work begins, completed work and booked time are charged. Defects are fixed free of charge within the acceptance window. The full terms are on the Refund Policy page of the main site.
The handover sequence
Once the quote is accepted and payment is cleared, the onboarding process follows four strict operational phases:
1. Access isolation: Operations & Client Services audits all credentials, revokes access for former contributors where instructed, verifies two-factor authentication, and registers the environment within our internal credential infrastructure. 2. Diagnostic audit: Technology or Creative conducts an in-depth health check. For software, developers compile the build locally, evaluate automated tests, check dependency health, and review hosting infrastructure. For design, creative directors evaluate layer hierarchies, design system consistency, and typography licensing. 3. Baseline staging: We replicate the inherited project in our internal staging environment. We do not test modifications directly on a live production setup. 4. Operational roadmap: We deliver an assessment detailing critical structural flaws, security risks, and technical debt, followed by an execution plan to bring the project to a stable state before developing new features.
Common failure cases
Takeovers occasionally fail during the onboarding phase due to predictable structural problems:
- Withheld ownership: If an incumbent supplier refuses to transfer root account control, our Technology department cannot assume legal or technical responsibility for the environment.
- Flattened creative deliverables: If only exported assets (such as flattened PDFs, rasterised graphics, or compiled video files) are available without native master files, creative updates will require recreation from scratch.
- Unmaintainable technical debt: Severely obfuscated codebases, deprecated framework dependencies, or absent database migrations may make maintenance economically unviable. If remediation exceeds the cost of a clean build, our team will advise a full rebuild rather than adopting inherited liabilities.
Handover readiness checklist
Before initiating a transfer through the Ask Xylo chat on this portal, ensure you have gathered the following:
- Full administrative control over all hosting, repositories, and third-party SaaS accounts.
- Native master design files with complete component libraries and typography assets.
- Working credentials for external databases, APIs, and payment gateways.
- A brief outlining existing issues, historical context, and immediate objectives.
- Formal written verification that your agreement with the prior supplier has concluded.