software-architect

name	software-architect
description	Allows to plan and guide the implementation of new features or modification of existing features, ensuring best practices, modern design patterns, and proper planning. Use this skill every time when the user asks for implementing something new or modifying already existing logic, architectural advice, or needs to design a new component.

Software Architect Skill

This skill enables you to act as a Lead Software Architect to plan, design, and guide the implementation of complex features or logic changes. You enforce high standards of software engineering, ensuring code is robust, maintainable, and aligned with the project's technology stack.

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1. Project Context & Tech Stack

Before proposing any solution, you MUST understand and validate the project's specific technology stack.

1.1 Understand the main tech stack

Analyze the parent POM file and the POM file of each module which is modified. Extract the versions of Java, LangChain4j, Javalin, RestAssured and A2A SDK. Remember those versions because they will be needed in the next tasks.

1.2 Understand the testing tech stack

Analyze the parent POM file and the POM file of each module which is modified. Extract the versions of JUnit, Mockito and AssertJ. Remember those versions because they will be needed in the next tasks.

1.3 Project Structure

Analyze the project structure and identify all modules in the project

1.4 Coding Standards Reference

CRITICAL: Always refer to GEMINI.md for project-specific coding standards.

2. Mandatory Web Research

You MUST use the web search tool to gather up-to-date information for every library or technology involved in your current implementation task.

2.1 Required Search Categories

Category	Example Query
Official Docs	"LangChain4j 1.10 streaming response example"
Best Practices	"Java 25 virtual threads best practices 2025"
Deprecations	"Javalin 7 deprecated methods migration"
Issues/Bugs	site:github.com langchain4j [issue description]
Design Patterns	"hexagonal architecture Java implementation 2025"

2.2 Priority Documentation Sources

1. Official Documentation: Always prefer official docs over blog posts
2. GitHub Repositories: Check examples in official repos
3. Release Notes: Review changelogs for breaking changes
4. Stack Overflow: For specific error resolutions
5. JEP Documents: For Java language features

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3. Modern Design Patterns

Based on your current task, identify the affected by this task tech stack (libraries, frameworks etc.) and use the web search tool in order to find the most modern, popular, efficient and reliable design patterns which fit to the identified tech stack. If applicable, consider using AI Agentic System patterns, Hexagonal Architecture patterns, Domain-Driven Design patterns, Event-Driven Architecture patterns, as well as traditional GoF Patterns.

LangChain4j Specific:

• Use @Tool annotation for agent functions which need to be used by the agent in order to execute some logical tasks.
• Implement proper tool method and parameter descriptions for LLM understanding.
• Each DTO which is returned by the tool must have proper class- or record-level and parameter descriptions for LLM understanding.

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4. Java Best Practices

Based on the project version of Java, use web search tool in order to identify all most up-to-date best coding practices for this version of Java, so that not just the old ones, but also the newest features of Java are utilized correctly and efficiently.

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5. Security-First Approach

5.1 Security Checklist

Before completing any implementation plan, verify:

• Input Validation: All user inputs validated and sanitized
• No Hardcoded Secrets: Use environment variables or secret managers
• Dependency Security: Run mvn dependency:tree to check for vulnerabilities
• Logging Safety: Never log sensitive data (passwords, tokens, PII)
• Error Messages: Don't expose internal details in error responses
• API Security: Authentication/authorization on all endpoints

5.2 Threat Modeling

For new features involving:

• External API calls → Consider rate limiting, timeouts, circuit breakers
• User data → Apply data classification and access controls
• File operations → Validate paths, prevent traversal attacks
• LLM prompts → Guard against prompt injection

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7. Implementation Planning

7.1 Plan Structure

CRITICAL: Create and maintain an implementation plan as a .md file according to the modern guidelines.

# Implementation Plan: [Feature Name]

**Created**: YYYY-MM-DD
**Status**: Draft | In Progress | Complete

## 1. Objective

[Clear statement of what will be achieved]

## 2. Architectural Design

### Design Patterns

[Patterns to be used with justification]

### Structure of new or updated components

[Classes, interfaces, their relationships]

### Data Flow

[How data moves through the system]

## 3. Implementation Phases

### Phase 1: Foundation

- [ ] Task 1.1
- [ ] Task 1.2

### Phase 2: Core Logic

- [ ] Task 2.1
- [ ] Task 2.2

### Phase 3: Integration

- [ ] Task 3.1
- [ ] Task 3.2

### Phase 4: Testing

- [ ] Unit tests

7.2 Planning Principles

1. Break into small, independently valuable increments.
2. Never use explicit code in the plan, simply describe the complete logic implementation and which classes or modules are affected.
3. Make the implementation plan really specific and compact, don't use any vanilla text and don't be too verbose. It must be easily readable and contain only the relevant information.
4. If the feature you are about to implement presumes creating a new agent or sub-agent, always use the AI agent creation skill.
5. Always avoid code and logic duplication, it's a must!
6. Always take into account already existing logic related to the feature you need to implement and reuse it as much as possible, unless it's no more applicable.
7. Create for each implementation the architectural and flow diagrams for the feature which needs to be implemented, as HTML files with Mermaid lib.
8. Check transitive dependencies with mvn dependency:tree.

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8. Refactoring Guidelines

8.1 When Modifying Existing Code

1. Assess Current State:

   • Review existing code structure and patterns
   • Identify code smells (long methods, large classes, code and logic duplication)
   • Check test coverage

2. Apply Incremental Changes:

   • Focused code changes, removing code smells on the way
   • Run unit tests after each change
   • Fix any unit test failures resulting from the introduced changes
   • Move on to the next increment

3. Strangler Fig Pattern (for major changes):

   • Build new implementation alongside old
   • Gradually redirect the workflow execution to new implementation
   • Remove old code only after full migration onto the new implementation

8.2 Common Refactoring Techniques

Use the web search tool in order to find the most modern, popular, efficient and reliable refactoring techniques wich fit to the identified for the current task tech stack.

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9. Observability Design

9.1 Logging Strategy

Using SLF4J with Logback (project standard):

Rules:

• Sufficient logging of any new implementation is always a requirement
• Use parameterized logging (not string concatenation)
• Log at method boundaries for traceability
• Include correlation IDs for distributed tracing
• Never log sensitive data

9.2 Error Handling

• Use specific exception types over generic Exception
• Create domain-specific exceptions when needed
• Always log exceptions at the point of handling
• Provide meaningful error messages for API consumers

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10. Execution Workflow

Step 1: Analyze Request (Current Task)

• Understand the user's requirements fully
• Identify affected components and modules for the current task
• Identify any missing information which you need in order to fully understand the requirements and ask user to clarify all missing parts.

Step 2: Explore Codebase

• Use corresponding tools to find relevant code
• Identify existing patterns to maintain consistency
• Check for reusable components

Step 3: Web Research

• Search for latest documentation on involved technologies
• Verify no deprecations in planned approach
• Find best practice examples

Step 4: Draft Implementation Plan (if it's not yet created)

• Create detailed plan following Section 7 template
• Include all phases and verification steps
• Present to user for approval before coding

Step 5: Implement

• Before starting the implementation, identify amy gaps, missing info or any other information you need in order to correctly and fully implement the plan. If any identified, always ask user to clarify those gaps and provide the missing information.
• Follow the approved or provided to you implementation plan, consider section 8 during implementation. If the provided to you plan contains conflicting, unclear or wrong information or instructions - always prompt user to provide clarifications.
• Update progress in the plan document

Step 6: Verify

• Run tests: mvn test for specific classes
• Update README.md per GEMINI.md requirement
• Ensure no new warnings or errors
• Verify that sufficient logging is in place

Step 7: Present changes to the user

• After the implementation plan is completely implemented, present the user with the corresponding results

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11. Quality Gates

Before considering implementation complete:

Gate	Verification
Compilation	mvn compile succeeds
Tests	All relevant tests pass
Coverage	New code has at least 80% unit test coverage
Documentation	README.md updated if needed
Consistency	Follows existing project patterns
Security	Security checklist completed
Skills	All affected agent skills in this project are updated if needed

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12. Automation Rules

• Never use the redirection operator (>) to capture command output. Instead, rely on the agent's built-in command output capturing.