You face intense pressure to modernize your core applications. The pressure comes from the board. The pressure comes from an external audit. You sit in a room to build a budget. The first meeting begins. The consultant asks a simple question. How many programs currently run in production? Three people sit in the room. Three people give three different numbers. The VP of Engineering looks at a budget spreadsheet. The senior RPG developer points to a source physical file. They do not agree. The numbers do not match. The meeting stalls immediately.
This is exactly how your first AS400 consulting engagement call will fail.
You cannot modernize a system when you do not know the boundary of the system. You cannot plan a migration when the scope changes by the hour. You need absolute facts before you schedule the meeting. You need a verifiable inventory before you sign a contract. Getting those facts requires reading the source code. The source code contains the exact truth. It records the history of every business decision made over the last thirty years.
Programs written in the 1990s still compile today. IBM i is the current name of the operating system once sold as AS/400, then iSeries, then System i. It runs on Power hardware. Those old programs still execute business logic on modern hardware. The system runs reliably for decades. New programs call old programs. Over time, the exact count of active programs becomes a complete mystery. You cannot build a strategy on a guess.
What most engagements start with and miss
Consultants often start with a long questionnaire. They hand over a rate card. They schedule interviews to ask human beings what the system does. They charge for every hour spent listening. This approach misses the reality of the code entirely. Human beings forget details over a span of decades. Developers retire and take system knowledge with them. The current team only knows the pieces they actively maintain. The consultant gets a partial picture based on fragmented human memory.
They miss the unresolved copy members. They miss the programs that nothing calls. They ignore the dependencies hidden inside CL programs. They fail to find the truth stored on the physical disks. CL programs that drive FTP transfers often hold a user ID and password as literal text. Interviews miss that security detail completely. A rate card generates invoices without generating clarity. The traditional consulting model sells time. Time spent discovering basic facts is wasted budget. Any plan built on interviews relies on stories. Stories introduce errors. Errors extend timelines. You need a process that reads the code directly. You need a process that ignores human memory entirely. A human cannot read a whole library of RPG fast enough to build a budget.
Facts to hand your consultant before the call
Change the timeline of the project completely. Give the consultant the technical facts before the call begins. Hand them a save file of your source libraries. Hand them an IFS directory if your source lives there. Provide the exact library list. The library list resolves where the copy members live. Copy members pull source from other libraries into a program at compile time. An unresolved copy member is one the reading tool could not find. Finding these gaps early saves weeks of wasted effort. You must supply the correct library list to resolve them. You must verify every library exists on the system.
State your operating system release level clearly. IBM i 7.4 reaches IBM end of support on 30 September 2026. IBM i 7.3 reached end of support on 30 September 2023. No date is announced for 7.5 or 7.6. Write down the names of the developers who can read RPG. Write down their exact retirement years. The retirement date acts as a strict deadline for the modernization work. Time is running out on their ability to explain the billing logic. This preparation anchors the meeting in technical reality. The consultant must react to your actual code. If they cannot process the source before the meeting, they are selling interviews. They are selling hours. They expect you to pay them to learn your business rules. A capable firm processes the source first. A capable firm arrives at the meeting with answers. They arrive ready to discuss the target architecture.
The first deliverable you should expect
The first deliverable must be a structured read of your production source. You should receive a precise program count. You should receive a complete dependency graph. You need plain-English descriptions of every program. You need a list of programs nothing calls. Golden Path Digital provides the IBM i modernization assessment. We ingest the production source libraries and hand back these exact artifacts. Understanding comes first.
You must verify the work immediately. Open three descriptions provided by the consultant. Open three source members on your system. Read them side by side on your screen. Verify the consultant understood the logic. The descriptions must match the code exactly. If the description is vague, the consultant failed. The dependency graph must show the compile-time references. DSPPGMREF reports which files a program references at the file level. It captures references at compile time. The graph must map these exact connections. It must flag unresolved copy members as warnings. This verification proves the firm can read your specific dialect of RPG. It proves they can map your specific business rules accurately. It proves they are ready for a real AS400 consulting project. You must hold the vendor accountable to the code. A generic summary provides no value to a migration team. An accurate map prevents expensive mistakes later in the project lifecycle.
Remote engagements inside your network boundaries
Security rules often block source code from leaving your network during an AS400 consulting engagement. This is a common requirement for any deep technical work. The solution is an air-gapped install on your own hardware. The software runs completely inside your boundaries. Nothing leaves your network. AS/Forward is software that reads IBM i RPG source. The structured read of the source comes first and the AI sits behind it. It reads six RPG dialects through a proprietary ingestion layer. It builds an interconnection graph across every program, file, copy member and display file.
It generates a plain-English description of each program from the ingested source. It flags missing dependencies as warnings. It shows a readiness status per program. AS/Forward runs against Claude, OpenAI, Gemini or local models on your own hardware. You keep every artifact: the graph, the plain-English descriptions and the list of warnings. The preferred deployment is completely isolated inside your network. Golden Path Digital runs this engagement from Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. We operate remotely or inside your isolated network. We tested the ingestion layer against roughly 5,000 programs drawn from PUB400 and public code repositories. AS/Forward carries one US patent pending. The software processes the source on your hardware and hands the results to your team. The source code never hits a public cloud. The intellectual property remains under your direct control. Your security team approves the installation. Your infrastructure team monitors the hardware.
Four questions to ask your AS400 consulting firm
You need to vet the firm before you share your source code. Ask these four specific questions. Listen closely to the answers.
| Question | The Answer You Need to Hear |
|---|---|
| How do you handle unresolved copy members? | We flag them as warnings and ask you to fix the library list. |
| How do you map program dependencies? | We parse the source, map the connections it carries, and flag what it could not resolve. |
| What do you do with unused programs? | We list the programs nothing calls so you can remove them from the scope. |
| Where does the analysis happen? | We run the ingestion on your hardware inside an isolated network. |
These answers show the firm has done this work before. They show the firm understands the exact limits of static analysis. A runtime-built call target does not appear in any static cross-reference. A runtime-built call target is a program name assembled from a parameter. The firm must acknowledge limits like this openly. They must explain how they handle them in production. A program compiled with USRPRF(*OWNER) adopts its owner’s authority while it runs. The firm must track these security details carefully. The firm must expose the hard truths of your system. They must provide understanding first. They cannot promise a perfect automated conversion without mapping these edge cases. An honest vendor highlights the limits of their tooling immediately.
The decision the consultant must never make
The consultant provides understanding first. The target decision comes second. The second decision belongs to you entirely. The consultant should never decide your target. Every outcome is valid. You might move off RPG completely. You might clean up the code to free-format RPG. You might keep green screens and modernize behind them. You might convert to Python.
AS/Forward scopes a change in a migration view. You pick a field or object. The view lists what else moves. It converts to any target language you pick. Python and free-format RPG are two examples. The firm delivers the facts. The firm builds the map. You decide where the map leads. A good consultant gives you the data to make the decision confidently. They do not force you into a specific language. They do not force you onto a specific cloud provider. The decision rests with the executives who own the system. You pay for the map to reduce risk. The risk drops when you understand the exact size of the application. The project succeeds when you control the timeline. The project succeeds when you control the code.
Start your next AS400 consulting project with facts
Call Golden Path Digital. Ask us to read your production source libraries. Or we install AS/Forward inside your network and it reads the source there. We deliver the exact program count. We deliver the complete dependency graph. We deliver the plain-English descriptions. We hand back the list of programs nothing calls. We are located in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. We also offer custom software development. Reach us by phone at 501-232-7188. Send a message through our contact page. Stop paying consultants to conduct interviews. Put your source code through a structured ingestion layer. Find out exactly what runs in your production environment. Protect your budget by starting with a verified inventory. Secure your system by mapping every connection. Trust the code.