The Gap Between "Built" and "Production-Ready" (And Why Your AI App Hits a Wall) You built something in Lovable or Bolt in three days. It works. Your co-founder tested it. You're ready to ship. Then reality hits. Your database lives on their servers. Your code is locked in their export format. You need to add authentication, set up proper backups, configure a real domain, handle payment webhooks, and somehow make sure this doesn't explode when you get actual users. The builder platform that made iteration frictionless suddenly becomes a cage. This is the production gap, and it's where most AI-built apps stall. Here's what actually happens: AI builders are optimized for speed and iteration, not infrastructure ownership. They're fantastic at letting you see your idea work quickly. But they're not designed to be production systems. There's no rollback mechanism if something breaks. No deployment history. Your data isn't yours until you manually export it. The CI/CD pipeline doesn't exist.…