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Design services that are reliable, observable, secure, and maintainable
| name | backend-engineering |
| description | Design services that are reliable, observable, secure, and maintainable |
| difficulty | senior |
| domains | ["general"] |
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.
/review workflow for backend PRsDocument: endpoints/methods, request/response schemas, error codes, authentication requirements, rate limits. No implementation before the contract is defined.
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.
Validate all incoming data before processing: types, required fields, length limits, format constraints. Reject invalid input — don't try to fix it.
All write operations should be idempotent where possible. Use idempotency keys for payment and other sensitive operations.
Implement structured logging, metrics (four golden signals), and distributed tracing. See observability-and-monitoring.
security-and-hardening.Handle: SIGTERM, drain in-flight requests, close database connections, flush logs. Services that don't handle graceful shutdown cause errors during deployments.
Build UIs that work for all users including keyboard navigation, screen readers, and WCAG 2.2
Design multi-agent systems with robust tool interfaces, state management, and failure handling
Build ML systems with disciplined training, evaluation, deployment, and safety practices
Design APIs that are stable, ergonomic, and evolvable
Design systems at the right scale with explicit trade-off documentation
Design CI/CD pipelines with fast feedback, quality gates, and reliable deployments