Why documenting a COBOL program can still take 12 hours in 2025 (and how AI reduces it to just minutes)
Shock introduction
The figure is staggering: over 220 billion lines of COBOL are still running in production in 2025.
Every day, they power banking transactions, insurance, pensions, and even certain public services.
The problem: documenting a single COBOL program can still take 6 to 12 hours.
And some banks pay up to $400/hour for experts capable of explaining what the code actually does.
In other words: a mine of critical knowledge… but one that costs a fortune to decode.
Why it takes so long
Documenting a COBOL program remains a headache for several reasons:
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A verbose but deceptive language: despite its “English-readable” syntax, COBOL hides complex variables, nested sections, and rigid procedural logic.
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No initial documentation: most programs have been running for 30 or 40 years without a clear manual. Everything has to be reconstructed by hand.
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Buried business logic: critical rules (banking calculations, taxation, pensions) are hard-coded into nested IF statements.
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Invisible dependencies: VSAM files, CICS calls, JCL jobs… each program is a ball of yarn unraveling across multiple systems.
Result: even COBOL experts take hours (sometimes days) to write reliable documentation.
The risk for banks and insurers
This slowness is not just a technical issue. It’s a major strategic risk:
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Mass retirements: every year, COBOL experts leave the market, taking with them decades of tacit knowledge.
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Rare and costly workforce: rates skyrocket (€800 to €1200/day) to recruit COBOL specialists able to intervene.
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Modernization projects delayed: due to lack of documentation, migrations to Java/.NET or cloud fail 90% of the time on the first attempt.
For banks and insurers, this is an operational sinkhole that slows down digital transformation.
The Bosqweb solution
This is precisely the challenge we decided to tackle.
Bosqweb offers a platform powered by artificial intelligence that:
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Reads and automatically summarizes COBOL: each program is broken down and explained in natural language.
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Produces clear technical + business documentation: variables, business rules, transactional flows.
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Generates visual maps and reports: dependencies between programs, JCL links, CICS integrations.
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Ensures functional fidelity thanks to automated test suites (unit, integration, regression, performance).
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Reduces transformation timelines by up to 80% by preparing a progressive, secure, and documented modernization.
In short: what used to take 12 manual hours can be reduced to a few minutes with Bosqweb.
Are you a bank, an insurance company, an IT services firm, or a government agency?
Do you want to secure your COBOL knowledge and accelerate your modernization projects?
👉 Test our Alpha demo for free.
Upload a COBOL program and instantly get clear, usable documentation.
COBOL is not the problem. It’s the ecosystem around it.
A simple language, a complex environment
COBOL often looks intimidating. It’s imagined as an ancient, incomprehensible language reserved for “dinosaur programmers.”
In reality, learning COBOL is no harder than learning Python: its syntax is clear, almost literary.
The real obstacle is not the language. It’s all the tools and processes orbiting around it:
- JCL to submit jobs,
- IMS and DB2 to manage data,
- ISPF (the infamous green screen) as an IDE,
- Proprietary software like Endeavor, costly and closed.
Add to that outdated workflows: little to no Git, almost no CI/CD, manual deployments at night or on weekends, and endless meetings to orchestrate it all.
The result: a widening gap between younger developers, used to modern environments (AWS, Azure, GitHub Actions), and the mainframe world.
The real challenge: scarce skills
Training a new COBOL developer would only take a few weeks.
But training someone to master COBOL + JCL + IMS + ISPF + proprietary tools is another story.
This package is long, expensive, and only accessible to those with real access to a mainframe — which is increasingly rare.
This is why retiring mainframe experts are not being replaced. Banks, insurers, and governments find themselves trapped: they rely on code they no longer fully understand, and cannot maintain at the pace of legislative, regulatory, or business changes.
Bosqweb: a shortcut and a bridge
At Bosqweb, we don’t believe COBOL is obsolete. We believe its ecosystem needs modernization.
Our platform offers a shortcut:
👉 No need for a physical mainframe or proprietary software — simply upload a COBOL file and immediately get:
- Clear technical documentation,
- A business-readable translation for analysts,
- Optimization recommendations to cut mainframe costs (micro-batches, SQL set-based, zIIP offload).
We also aim to be a bridge to modernity:
👉 Bringing to the mainframe world what GitHub, CI/CD, and linters bring to the cloud.
A generational accelerator
Young developers already know how to learn fast. Let’s give them the right tools.
With Bosqweb, COBOL becomes as accessible as Python: readable, documented, connected to modern practices.
This makes it possible to:
- Reduce dependency on the few COBOL experts left,
- Train a new generation faster,
- Lower costs tied to mainframe consumption peaks,
- Restore confidence in organizations still running on COBOL.
Conclusion: modernization without throwing away
COBOL is not a burden. It’s a valuable asset still running our banks, insurers, and governments.
The real problem lies in outdated tools and processes.
With Bosqweb, we offer a new path: document, understand, and modernize without rewriting everything.
The future of the mainframe isn’t about fighting COBOL, but working with it — better tooled, better understood, and open to the modern world.
👉 Curious how Bosqweb can modernize your COBOL environments? Request a free demo today.
COBOL: What if AI became your co-pilot for critical systems?
A language still at the heart of business
Banks, insurance companies, governments, airlines, retail… everywhere, COBOL still powers the most critical systems.
And yet, with every regulatory change, new business rule, or contract update, the same question comes back:
👉 “Who is going to update the code?”
Because while COBOL can be learned quickly, it’s really the tools, processes, and rare expertise that make it complex.
The challenge: updating COBOL in 2025
Every business update (e.g. a new collective agreement, tax rule, or billing policy) requires:
- Identifying the impacted sections across millions of lines of code.
- Understanding the business logic hidden in nested IFs and legacy calculations.
- Updating the code precisely without breaking production.
- Validating and documenting the changes to ensure compliance.
The problem? COBOL experts are retiring, juniors struggle to enter the mainframe ecosystem, and processes (JCL, IMS, Endeavor, ISPF) remain heavy and manual.
What Bosqweb brings today
Bosqweb doesn’t replace your developers. It acts as a smart co-pilot:
- COBOL code analysis (including JCL, DB2, IMS).
- Identifying impacted areas by business or regulatory changes.
- Automatic documentation in plain technical + business language.
- Targeted modification suggestions:
- Add a new IF condition.
- Adapt a calculation to a regulatory change.
- Insert a new field into a DB2 table.
- Ready-to-use snippets (generated COBOL or SQL patches).
👉 The result: your teams save days, even weeks, while keeping full control of the code.
What Bosqweb is preparing for tomorrow
We are moving toward progressive automation, always with a final human validation step:
- Semi-automated mode:
Bosqweb generates a full COBOL patch from a business instruction (“add a 2% raise for category B employees”).
→ A developer validates before integration. - Automated mode with safeguards:
Integrated with Git/Endeavor: Bosqweb proposes a commit, triggers sandbox tests, and waits for human validation before production.
Why this matters for every industry
- Banking & Insurance: quickly adapt rates, premiums, or financial products.
- Government: implement payroll or tax rules in days, not months.
- Airlines: update fare or booking rules without risk.
- Retail: adjust taxation or large-scale promotions in legacy systems.
Everywhere, the same challenge: act fast, reduce risks, compensate for the shortage of experts.
Our philosophy: keep control
Bosqweb is not a risky autopilot.
It’s a reliable co-pilot that:
- Finds and explains required changes.
- Prepares modifications.
- Always leaves the final decision to a human before production.
Conclusion
COBOL will remain at the heart of critical systems for a long time.
The real challenge is not replacing it, but augmenting it with the right tools.
👉 With Bosqweb, your teams gain speed, confidence, and efficiency.
Because modernizing COBOL doesn’t mean throwing it away: it means making it smarter.
Want to see Bosqweb analyze your own COBOL programs and suggest concrete optimizations? Request a free demo today.
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