Backend Design Skill
This skill guides the design of reliable backend systems, APIs, and data models with clear trade-offs, strong correctness guarantees, and operational readiness.
Design Thinking
- Scope: Identify core use cases, data flows, and integration points.
- Constraints: Latency, throughput, availability, compliance, and deployment limits.
- Data: Define entities, relationships, invariants, and lifecycle.
- Reliability: Error handling, retries, idempotency, and consistency model.
Architecture Guidelines
- API Design: Explicit contracts, versioning, validation, and error shape.
- Storage: Choose stores based on access patterns and durability needs.
- Performance: Indexing, caching, batching, and async processing.
- Security: AuthN/AuthZ, least privilege, secrets handling, auditability.
- Observability: Logging, metrics, tracing, and alerting signals.
- Scalability: Stateless services where possible, clear scaling boundaries.
Output Requirements
Provide a clear backend plan or implementation that includes:
- Data model and key invariants
- API endpoints or service interfaces
- Failure modes and recovery strategy
- Performance and scaling considerations
- Security and observability notes
Response Checklist
Backend Design Checklist
- [ ] Confirm requirements and constraints
- [ ] Define data model and invariants
- [ ] Specify API contracts and error shape
- [ ] Address failure modes and consistency
- [ ] Cover performance, scaling, and caching
- [ ] Include security and observability plans