Boone County Public Works had a working vibe-coded app and a clear vision. Red Hawk Technologies took that vibe-coded app to production in about three and a half months, compared with a six-month estimate, and turned it into a secure, production-grade asset management platform at a fraction of the cost of the commercial software the County had been quoted.
The result is Boone County Asset Management, a cloud-hosted system that handles citizen requests, work orders, crew logs, and cost tracking across roughly 1,000 lane miles of county roads. It replaces two legacy systems and soft-launched in October 2026, with county-wide availability planned for November 2026.
Boone County Public Works was working across aging enterprise software and spreadsheets that could not produce the metrics and KPIs the department needed to support its budget. Commercial asset management vendors quoted high annual licensing fees plus separate training costs, and the department believed its own staff understood its needs better than an outside software company.
So Public Works built its own. Using an AI app-building platform, the department’s subject matter experts created a vibe-coded prototype that looked great, proved the concept, and got stakeholders excited. It was exactly what vibe coding does best: it shortened the path from idea to something people could click through and react to.
But the team knew a prototype is not a production system. The app could not handle the County’s accounting and statutory rules, and security, hosting, and code hardening were beyond what the in-house team could verify. County IT also required that the application be hosted by a third party, outside county infrastructure. Public Works needed a partner to operationalize what it had started.
Red Hawk started where the prototype left off. Rather than begin with a lengthy requirements exercise, the team took the working prototype as the requirements, analyzed its code for vulnerabilities, and made a clear-eyed call about what to keep. The polished user interface stayed and was optimized. The backend was replaced entirely with a production architecture built to handle the rules of public-sector operations.
Built for how government actually works. Completed work orders are locked as permanent legal records, with personnel, equipment, and material rates captured as a snapshot at the moment of completion. Records that are referenced elsewhere cannot be deleted, supporting compliance with open records requirements. Ten years of historical data was migrated so staff keep their long-term maintenance history.
Built for residents and crews. A public request form uses GIS data to determine whether a reported road is maintained by the county, city, state, or a private owner, then sends confirmation and status updates automatically. Crew leaders log labor hours, equipment, materials, and photos using quick-select templates, and managers see role-based dashboards, KPIs, and month-over-month trends. An interactive county map shows requests and work orders in real time.
Built to last. The platform runs in Red Hawk’s Azure environment with automated pipelines that move changes through development, staging, and production in minutes. Software composition analysis and security remediation are part of the ongoing contract. The application meets WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility standards, works on phones and tablets, uses passwordless email-link sign-in, and generates user guides and change logs automatically with every release.
The work was delivered in one-week sprints through seven releases, with more than 320 changes shipped on the way to version 1.0.
Boone County Asset Management soft-launched as version 1.0 in October 2026, about three and a half months after work began. The County now has a single platform in place of two legacy systems, with a total cost that is a fraction of the commercial alternative and a delivery timeline well ahead of the six months originally estimated.
“Our operations team knew the work, the processes, and how to run a public works department better than any govtech software vendor, so we built the prototype ourselves. Red Hawk took it the rest of the way, with the security, records rules, and hosting that public-sector systems require. In about three and a half months we went from a promising prototype to a platform our crews and managers use every day. Working with Red Hawk was a true partnership, and we’ll gladly do it again.”
Tom Logan Public Works Director at Boone County
The work doesn’t stop at launch. Red Hawk will keep supporting and maintaining the platform, and the two teams are already planning phase 2. Since most of the code and infrastructure can be reused, Boone County has a running start on the other applications it has in the works.
Vibe coding got Boone County Public Works from idea to a working prototype without waiting on consultants, and it gave stakeholders something real to react to. Taking a vibe-coded app to production took engineering judgment: knowing which parts to keep, which to rebuild, and how to make the whole thing secure, compliant, and supportable. That combination is what turned a promising prototype into a system the County can run on.
A vibe-coded app is software built by describing what you want to an AI tool and iterating on the results, often by someone who is an expert in the problem but not a professional developer. It is a fast way to turn an idea into something people can click through, test, and react to.
A prototype proves that an idea works, but production software has to be secure, accurate, accessible, hosted properly, and supportable. In the Boone County project, the prototype looked great but could not handle the County’s accounting and statutory rules, and no one could verify its security and hosting readiness.
The core steps are a code and security review, a decision on what to keep and what to rebuild, a production architecture, automated deployment, hosting, accessibility and compliance work, data migration, testing with real users, and a plan for ongoing support. For Boone County Asset Management, Red Hawk kept the interface, replaced the backend, and delivered the work in one-week sprints. Using a software composition analysis (SCA) product, like Red Hawk’s patent-pending SCA platform, to analyze the code and licensing dependencies and to automate detailed technical documentation helps expedite the process, saving hundreds of hours of engineering time.
It depends on what is worth keeping. Boone County’s user interface was strong, so it was kept and optimized, while the backend was replaced because it could not enforce the business rules the County needed. Replacing it also removed the application’s dependencies on the AI app-building platform used for vibe coding, which would have locked the County into that platform indefinitely. The working prototype also served as the starting point for requirements, which saved time that a traditional requirements exercise would have taken.
It varies with scope, data, and compliance needs. Boone County Asset Management went from kickoff to launch in about three and a half months, compared with an estimated six months to implement a commercial alternative, with annual licensing costs, and software that didn’t match their operational workflow.
Yes. A prototype lets subject matter experts test ideas without waiting on consultants and show stakeholders something real. The caveat is that it is a starting point, and a partner can help turn it into something the organization can depend on.
Red Hawk provides post-launch support and maintenance. Automated deployment pipelines move updates through development, staging, and production in minutes, and user guides and change logs are generated with every release.
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