How I Audit a Startup's Frontend Codebase in 48 Hours
The exact process I use to find what's slowing your team down
Your CTO tells you the frontend is "fine." Your engineers say they just need more time. Your product manager says features are taking twice as long as they should. Someone is wrong — but you don't know who, because nobody has looked at the codebase with fresh eyes.
Hour 0-2: The First Clone
Before reading code, I run the project. Clone, install, start. How long does npm install take? How many peer dependency warnings? How long until the dev server is ready?
In one audit, npm install produced 47 peer dependency warnings and the dev server took 90 seconds to start. That told me everything about how much attention the build pipeline had received.
Area 1: Architecture Patterns (Hours 2-8)
I map folder structure, trace data flow, and look for patterns — or their absence. Is there a discernible architecture? How many ways does data flow? Are there god components? Is business logic separated from UI?
Most common finding: no architecture at all. Not bad architecture — the absence of one.
Area 2: Component Reuse (Hours 8-14)
I search for duplicate implementations. The record: seven different button implementations in one codebase. Seven.
Area 3: State Management (Hours 14-20)
Is server state managed with a dedicated tool or manually with useEffect? Is there a single global state solution or three competing ones?
Area 4: Build Pipeline (Hours 20-28)
Dev server startup time, production build time, bundle size, CI pipeline duration. One client's CI took 22 minutes per push — engineers were batching changes instead of committing frequently.
Area 5: Testing (Hours 28-34)
Do tests exist? Do they test the right things? Are critical paths covered? Do they actually run in CI?
Hours 34-48: The Report
A prioritized action plan: fix this week (high-impact, low-effort), fix this quarter (architectural improvements), plan for next quarter (larger migrations).
About 80% of startup frontend codebases share the same core issues: no component library, inconsistent state management, slow builds, and zero testing. The good news: most are fixable without a rewrite.
If your team is shipping slower than they should and nobody can articulate why, a structured audit cuts through the narratives and gives you facts.