Who owns what gets built

What belongs to you

Ask these before you sign

• Whose name are the accounts and API keys in, at the end?
• Can I export my data, in what format, and has anyone tested it?
• Who owns the configuration, the prompts and the documentation?
• What happens to all of this if you and I stop working together?
• What am I paying monthly, to whom, after you leave?
• What would it take for me to move this to a different vendor?

What it cannot do

The shape of a bad answer

Vagueness about account ownership. Data held in a proprietary format. Documentation described as “we'll walk you through it”. A monthly fee whose composition nobody will itemise. None of these are automatically dishonest, and all of them are how a dependency starts.

What you carry

What transfer actually looks like

Credentials in your name. Written operating documentation. Two training sessions with the people who will run it, not one demo for the person who signed. A correction window after handover. If a system stops working when the consultant leaves, the consultant did the job wrong.