A rebuild does not start from nothing when the team distinguishes reusable product knowledge and verified behavior from code that reproduces the current fault structure.
Inventory assets by what they preserve
List verified product behavior, domain rules, data and migration history, interface contracts, integration knowledge, acceptance tests, operational runbooks, observability, deployment controls, customer commitments, design decisions, and useful code modules. Record the evidence, owner, dependency, condition, and path under which each asset remains valid.
Do not label an entire repository reusable or disposable. A difficult codebase may contain accurate domain tests and essential data semantics. Clean-looking modules may encode assumptions that the target rejects. Review assets at boundaries meaningful to the decision so selective replacement remains visible between wholesale repair and wholesale rebuild.
Assign a disposition with a proof
Use preserve unchanged, wrap, extract, translate, regenerate, reimplement from behavior, archive, or retire. Every disposition should name its reason and validation method. A preserved API contract may need consumer tests. Migrated data may need reconciliation. Reimplemented behavior may need a gold case or side-by-side observation before the old path is removed.
AWS modernization guidance begins with discovery of pain points, workflows, capabilities, and dependencies before analysis and implementation. Apply that discipline to the asset map. A component survives because it helps reach the target under known constraints, not because replacing it feels disrespectful to prior effort or preserving it feels cheaper without evidence.
Carry ownership into the chosen path
Name who can accept each preserved behavior, data result, interface, test, and operational control. Record which assets require ongoing access to the old system and when that dependency ends. A rebuild that depends indefinitely on the old maintainer, database, or release path has not completed the ownership transition the asset map was meant to support.
Forward Cost Dossier prepares the survival map through Reality Contact, LLC. The buyer determines product correctness, data obligations, intellectual-property rights, and acceptance. The map does not establish legal ownership or guarantee that an asset can be moved safely. It identifies the evidence and proof required before a disposition becomes part of implementation.
Where the service stops
Reality Contact, LLC prepares technical decision evidence but does not certify security, compliance, reliability, valuation, delivery dates, or cost estimates; it does not give legal, investment, accounting, or procurement advice and does not guarantee that any selected path will succeed. The buyer defines the target state and constraints, supplies authorized evidence, challenges assumptions, approves the proof, chooses the path, assigns funding and owners, and commissions any repair, rebuild, selective replacement, or retirement under a separate scope. This technical decision service does not replace security, compliance, legal, accounting, investment, procurement, product, data, architecture, or production-operations review. The buyer owns the target state, estimates, constraints, proof authority, funding, staffing, implementation scope, and final repair, rebuild, selective replacement, retirement, or observation decision.
Sources: AWS wave-based refactoring framework; AWS modernization strategy definitions.