Backend engineering

Skill vignesh2027/AI-AGENT-SKILLS/skills/backend-engineering

Turn your ai agent into senior engineer..The result is fast code that fails slowly. AI Agent Skills solves this by giving agents the same disciplined workflows senior engineers use

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npx -y skills add vignesh2027/AI-AGENT-SKILLS --skill backend-engineering

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Design services that are reliable, observable, secure, and maintainable

SKILL.md

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Overview

Backend services are the load-bearing walls of software systems. They must be reliable under partial failure, observable in production, and secure against malicious input. This skill applies the engineering discipline required for production-grade services.

When to Use

Before implementing a new service or significant backend feature
When a service has reliability, performance, or security issues
As part of the /review workflow for backend PRs

Process

Step 1: Define the contract

Document: endpoints/methods, request/response schemas, error codes, authentication requirements, rate limits. No implementation before the contract is defined.

Step 2: Design for failure

Every outbound call must have: timeout, retry with backoff, circuit breaker, fallback. Services that don't handle dependency failures will fail when their dependencies fail.

Step 3: Input validation at the boundary

Validate all incoming data before processing: types, required fields, length limits, format constraints. Reject invalid input — don't try to fix it.

Step 4: Idempotency for mutations

All write operations should be idempotent where possible. Use idempotency keys for payment and other sensitive operations.

Step 5: Database access

No N+1 queries
Transactions for operations that must be atomic
Read replicas for read-heavy workloads
Connection pooling configured

Step 6: Logging and observability

Implement structured logging, metrics (four golden signals), and distributed tracing. See observability-and-monitoring.

Step 7: Security

Authenticate every request
Authorize every resource access
Validate all inputs
No secrets in logs or responses See security-and-hardening.

Step 8: Graceful shutdown

Handle: SIGTERM, drain in-flight requests, close database connections, flush logs. Services that don't handle graceful shutdown cause errors during deployments.

Verification Requirements

Contract documented before implementation
All outbound calls have timeout and retry
Input validation at the service boundary
No N+1 queries
Authentication and authorization on every request/resource
Graceful shutdown implemented
Four golden signals instrumented