For API, payments and digital asset companies
I get integrations live, and then I get them used.
I'm Chris Bailey. A signed deal isn't revenue until your customer is live on your API or payment flow and actually using it. I get them there. Then I turn the checks into Claude Code skills, instructions an AI agent follows, so your team can run the next one without me.
A few lines is plenty. I read and reply to every message myself.
Where it goes wrong
Most integrations don't fail on the API.
They fail on the parts nobody owned. Sales promised something nobody checked against the docs until the customer's engineers ran into it. The checkout marked an order as paid because the customer reached the thank-you page, not because the payment provider confirmed the money. The live API keys sat in someone's inbox for a month because nobody's name was on the request. Or the launch went fine, and the customer then sent a fraction of the traffic the deal was priced on.
More engineers rarely fix that, which is handy if yours are already stretched. What fixes it is someone reading the contract, the docs and the customer's plan side by side at the start, and putting a name and a date against every gap. That's my job.
A customer who never uses what they bought is a hard renewal conversation. I'd rather you had an easy one.
Example promise check
| Sold as | The docs say | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Refunds can be sent in bulk | One refund per request | Gap |
| Payments are confirmed automatically | The provider sends a signed message for every payment | Confirmed |
| Live API keys are ready for launch | They need a separate request, and nobody has made it | Gap |
| Handles the customer's full volume from day one | The docs don't give a limit for this plan | Unknown |
Signed deal
What did we promise?
Discovery
What does the customer actually need?
Design
Which system gets the final say on a payment?
Build and test
What can we prove before real money moves?
Go-live
Does every launch check have proof behind it?
Real usage
Is it doing the volume the deal was sold on?
Where I step in
- Stages 1 to 2: I check what the customer was promised
- Stage 3: I review the design
- Stages 3 to 4: I test the real API
- Stage 5: An agent gathers the proof, a person decides
- Stage 6: I check it's being used
Where I can help
Five places integrations get stuck
A customer signed and still isn't live
Or they went live and barely use it. I find what's blocking it and who owns each piece, watch the first live transactions go through and check usage again a month later.
You don't trust your webhooks
Money or data moves between systems, and nobody's sure what happens when a message arrives twice, late or not at all. I follow each message from one system to the other and note where it breaks, before your customers find out.
The API doesn't match its docs
An API you depend on doesn't always do what it says. I write tests that check what it really does, rerun them whenever the provider releases a change, and tell you what's different.
Your ledger and the provider don't agree
When money moves in and out, or you hold crypto for customers, your ledger, the payment provider and the blockchain all have to agree. I make sure they do, and that your operations team can check it without calling an engineer.
The know-how lives in two people's heads
I turn what your best people know into instructions an AI agent can follow, so the whole team can run it, and every answer says whether it came from the docs, a test or the agent's own inference.
AI agents
Then I teach an AI agent to run the checks, so your team keeps the method.
The checks that get one integration live are the checks the next one needs. Done by hand, they're slow, so they get skipped. Written down as skills an AI agent can run, they're cheap enough to do every time.
Most teams using AI have found a faster way to write the same first draft. The bigger win is teaching it the job. Claude Code is an AI agent that works inside your team's codebase. A skill is a written set of instructions it follows for one task, kept alongside your code and reviewed like any other change. I write them for the work your senior people keep repeating: preparing for a customer's technical call, checking what was promised against the latest docs, running the go-live check before a launch.
Every skill I write makes the agent say where each answer came from: the docs, a test run or its own inference. That means a person can check the work in minutes instead of redoing it, and a person still signs off anything that matters.
Example go-live check
| Status | Check | How we know |
|---|---|---|
| Done | Payment messages really come from the provider (signature checked) | Docsthe provider's webhooks page |
| Done | The same message arriving twice is only counted once | Testedduplicate sent in a test run |
| Done | A late "pending" message can't undo a payment that's already settled | Testedsent out of order in a test run |
| Open | How long the provider keeps retrying after a server error | Inferredfrom an example in the docs, not yet testedOwner: backend lead, due before launch |
| Waiting | Sign-off to go live | Owner: integration lead |
My own working notes are full of detail that must never reach a public page, so this site runs the same way. A Claude Code skill drafts the changes. A separate script, not the agent, checks each draft against a list of names from my notes and for personal details and keys, and stops the update if it finds one. Nothing goes live until I've read it. It's the same kind of setup I'd build around your customer data.
Example skill run
/go-live-check
- Checking message signatures against the provider's docs docs
- Sending the same payment message twice in a test run counted once
- Sending a late "pending" message after a settled one payment stays settled
- Looking for how long the provider retries after an error not in the docs, marked inferred
- Draft ready: three checks with proof, one inferred, one waiting for sign-off.
- Nothing goes live until a person signs it off.
Getting started
How it starts
You send a few lines about what's stuck. I reply with a question or two about the system and the deadline, and then we have a half-hour call. That's normally enough to tell whether there's something worth doing.
If there is, the first piece of work is small. I find out what's really going on and give you a written list of the gaps, the risks and the questions nobody has answered yet, each with the name of the person who needs to answer it. It's useful on its own. If there's more to do after that, you get a written scope with the price before anything starts, and no obligation to go ahead.
From there I can advise while your team does the work, take on a defined project, give you a set number of days each month, or join your team for a fixed period.
What the first piece of work looks likeWays to work together
Example first write-up
| Open question | Who answers it | Needed by |
|---|---|---|
| Which system decides that a payment has settled? | Your backend lead | Before the design is signed off |
| Who is requesting the live API keys? | The customer's IT team | This week |
| Does the customer need bulk refunds at launch? | Your account lead, with the customer | Before the build starts |
| What usage should the first month reach? | Your sales lead | Before launch |
Who you'd be working with
Me, Chris Bailey.
Bailey Wildash is my consultancy and it's just me, so the person on the first call is the person reading your docs and tracing your payment flow. There's no account manager and no junior team.
I'm most useful where an integration is stuck between teams: engineering thinks it's a sales problem, sales thinks it's the customer's, and the customer is still waiting for a date. I'd rather tell you the awkward thing in week one than explain it in week seven. I'm based in the UK and work with teams anywhere.
Integration stuck, or live and barely used?
Tell me what you're connecting, where it's stalled and when it needs to be live, or which process you'd like an agent to run. Plain English is fine.