Maintenance after handover: know before the client does

Updated 1 October 2026 · BugsRadar team

The project is delivered, the invoice is paid, and a maintenance contract says you will keep it running. The client's team doesn't read logs. Neither do you, because it is not your server anymore. The next thing you hear is a call, and the first question is "since when?".

The error reaches you first

Leave the BugsRadar package in the project, with the key in the deployment configuration, and point the project at a channel of yours: a Telegram group for the people who still touch that code. The first occurrence of every new error arrives at once with its stack trace, and repeats are counted in the same message, so "since when?" is answered by the timestamp on the message and "how bad?" by the count. See What you receive.

The client can have it too

A project can have several channels. If the client wants to see what you see, add a second channel into their chat; the Free plan has room for three. They see the same messages, and you don't have to forward anything or write a weekly summary of what broke.

Deploys as messages

Add one step to the pipeline that reports a finished deploy as an Information message, and one that reports a failed one: see Alert when a CI/CD pipeline fails. The chat then reads as a timeline: the deploy at 14:02, the first new error at 14:09 with the version in it, the fix at 14:40. Each message carries the application version, so an error from the old build and one from the new are never confused.

When the contract ends

A key only sends events to its project, and every project has two. The day the contract ends, press Regenerate on the key in the client's configuration: their site stops reporting to you, and nothing in their code needs to change. If they want to keep the alerts, they create their own BugsRadar account, make a project and put its key into the same configuration setting. See Keep the API key secret.

What it doesn't do

BugsRadar keeps no history, so it won't produce the quarterly report of incidents; your chat is the log, and it stays in your chat for as long as you keep it. SLA terms, priority support and invoicing under a contract are coming with the Business plan.

Where to go next

Agency: a channel per client is the same setup for ten clients at once. The first hour after a deploy is about the day you ship.