The offer

Send me your project

Tell me what you’re building, what done means and where the code and files are. Within one working day of a complete brief you get a written plan, free. The first milestone is up to 20 hours at USD 65 per hour, paid only if you accept it.

Send the brief

[1]Brief

Your project

The plan is free. The first milestone is up to 20 hours at USD 65 per hour, paid only if you accept the result.

Recent fixes merged by maintainers at Dagu, Vendure, CISO Assistant.

“The drain design is the right one, and the writeup made it easy to verify”

Fields marked optional can stay empty.

Your full name.

I reply here, in writing, within one working day, usually before 11:00 in New York.

The company the work is for.

A GitHub link is the fastest start. For private code, leave it empty, the NDA comes first.

What it is and who uses it, the scope, what done means, and any deadline or budget. A few lines are enough to start.

Nothing to pay for the plan. You get it in writing within one working day of a complete brief.

Or write to michael@axdale.com.

[2]Priority start

Two ways to start

Most projects start with the free written plan. If you have seen my work and want me on your project now, a priority start puts it first in my queue and I start the same week.

Standard

Free

A written plan within one working day

  • ReplyWithin one working day
  • CostFree
  • ThenFirst milestone, paid only if you accept it

Priority start

USD 4,999

I start on your project the same week

  • StartThis week, your project first in my queue
  • ReplySame working day
  • CostOne time, credited in full to your first invoice
  • PaymentGitHub Sponsors, or an invoice by wire
  • LimitOne priority start a week
  • RefundIn full if I have not started by Friday of the week you pay
Reserve a priority start (opens GitHub Sponsors in a new tab)

The first 72 hours. I read the code and your notes, send a written plan with the first milestone, and start work on it. If I have not started by Friday of the week you pay, I refund all of it.

After you pay, send the scope, the files, repo access, the deadline and anything else I need through the form above, right away. I reply the same working day and start on your project the same week. My capacity is limited, and a priority start is the clearest way to claim it. On GitHub Sponsors pick the USD 4,999 one-time tier. If your finance team needs an invoice, write to michael@axdale.com and AUTOM8 LLC invoices you by wire the same day. Paid at a weekend, the reply arrives the next working morning.

[3]Steps

Three steps

  1. [1]

    Send the brief

    What it is and who uses it, the scope, the deadline, and links to the repo, files, designs and docs.

  2. [2]

    Get the plan

    Within one working day, in writing and free. The scope, the milestones, the risks, an estimate and what I need from you.

  3. [3]

    Approve the first milestone

    Up to 20 hours at USD 65 per hour, with acceptance criteria agreed in writing. You pay only if the result meets them.

See a sample diagnosis

[+]Context

The more context, the better the work

Written context does the job a meeting would do. The more I can read before I plan, the sharper the plan and the faster the fix.

All of it is optional. Send what you already have, in any form.

  • The repo or the key files, and any architecture notes
  • Tickets, bug reports and past incident write-ups
  • For agent work, examples of good and bad output
  • Limits I should know about, such as data that must stay private
  • A short screen recording you make yourself, if that’s quicker than writing

[4]After the first milestone

Continue, or stop

Continue at USD 65 per hour, invoiced weekly for the hours worked, with one written report each week. Or stop. Either way the code you paid for is yours.

[5]Fair use

How the free plan stays fair

One free plan per company, for one project or one issue. The first milestone has its acceptance criteria fixed in writing before the first paid hour. It runs on a branch with test keys, never in production. If I hear nothing for five working days, the plan closes.

Read the agreement

[6]Questions

Questions

  1. Why is the plan free

    Because a written plan for your own project says more than any proposal. You see how I read code and plan the work before you pay anything.

  2. What does a priority start include

    Your project moves to the front of my queue and I start the same week, with a written reply the same working day. The USD 4,999 is credited in full to your first invoice. I take one priority start a week, and if I have not started by Friday of the week you pay, I refund all of it.

  3. What if I don’t accept the first milestone

    Then you don’t pay for it. The acceptance criteria are agreed in writing before the first paid hour, so both sides know what done means.

  4. If I am ever unavailable

    You already hold the code, every weekly report and a handover note another engineer can continue from. Nothing lives only in my head or in my accounts.

  5. Who your finance team pays

    I invoice in USD through AUTOM8 LLC, my registered company. Your finance team gets a W-8BEN-E and the signed agreement before the first paid hour.

  6. What about private code

    For a public repo, a short order form naming who decides is all it takes. For private code, the mutual NDA is signed first, then you give read access, and the one working day starts after that.

  7. Do AI tools touch the plan

    For a public repo I may use AI coding tools to read the code, and I write and check the plan myself. For private code, AI tools touch it only if you tick them in the order form.

  8. What counts as accepted

    You check the first milestone against the criteria agreed in writing. If you send no list of failed criteria within 5 working days, the milestone counts as accepted, as clause 7.2 of the agreement says.

  9. Who owns the code

    You do, once the invoice for that sprint is paid, as clause 8.2 of the agreement says. Until then the work sits on a branch where you can run and test it.

  10. How do I reach you during the week

    By email or in the pull request. I answer in writing within one working day.

  11. What access do you need

    The least that works. Usually a fork or a branch, a test environment and read access to logs. I make no production change without written approval.

  12. What if the problem is not a fit

    I say so in writing within one working day, with a reason. You owe nothing.

Privacy

What happens to your brief

I use what you send only to reply to your brief. It is stored in a database on Cloudflare and goes nowhere else. Write to michael@axdale.com to have it deleted. A half-typed brief is kept in this browser tab so a reload does not lose it, and it goes nowhere until you press send. If a link brought you here, such as one from LinkedIn, your browser keeps a short tag for that link for 30 days and sends it with your brief, so I can see which channel brought it. The tag is not a cookie and never reaches Google.

Analytics on this site

I use Google Analytics 4 to see which pages people read. It records the pages viewed, the device type and an approximate location, such as the country and city. It does not receive your name, your email or the text of a brief. Plan pages all report as one shared address, so no company name reaches Google.

Advertising features are off. I do not use the data for ads and I do not sell it. Google keeps it for 14 months and then deletes it.

Visitors from the EU, the UK and Switzerland see a short choice at the bottom of the page. Until you allow analytics, no analytics cookie is set on your device, and the page sends Google only a basic signal with no identifier in it.

You can change your choice at any time with Analytics choices in the footer. A browser blocker that stops Google Analytics works too, and the site works the same without it.

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