MicroService

Apache2 (httpd) configuration and ops for PHP services — vhosts, MPM tuning, PHP-FPM via mod_proxy_fcgi, mod_rewrite, TLS/HTTP2, compression/caching, hardening, and diagnosing 5xx/perf issues. Use for web-server config, deployment topology, and Apache performance/security.

Test automation strategy and engineering across the pyramid — unit, integration, API/contract, and end-to-end. Use for designing a test strategy, building API/E2E suites, CI test pipelines, fixtures/factories, flake reduction, and coverage of a REST microservice. Complements phpunit-testing for cross-cutting and higher-level testing.

MySQL schema design, indexing, and query tuning. Use when modeling tables, choosing types/keys, writing or optimizing SQL, reading EXPLAIN output, or resolving slow queries, deadlocks, and transaction issues.

Modern PHP 8.4/8.5 authoring and review. Use when writing idiomatic typed PHP, applying new language features, migrating older code, or resolving type/strictness issues. State the minimum PHP version any recent feature requires.

PHP performance — profiling, removing hotspots, cutting latency/memory, OPcache/JIT/preloading, eliminating N+1, efficient structures, generators/streaming, connection reuse, benchmarking. Use when something is slow or memory-heavy, or to validate an optimization. Measure first.

Redis from PHP — caching, sessions, rate limiting, locks, queues/streams, pub/sub, sorted-set patterns, TTL/eviction. Use when adding Redis to a feature, designing key schemes, or fixing cache correctness/stampede issues.

Defensive application security for PHP/web services — secure coding review, input validation, authn/authz, session/token security, injection/XSS/CSRF/SSRF/IDOR/deserialization defenses, secrets, and crypto. Use for security reviews and security-sensitive design. Defensive use only.

Write and run PHPUnit tests. Use whenever a new function/class/endpoint is added or changed, to add or update its unit/integration tests, run the suite (or a single test), and keep coverage meaningful. Default to test-alongside-every-change.

REST API industry-standard design and review. Use when defining endpoints, choosing HTTP methods/status codes, designing error formats, versioning, pagination, auth, caching headers, or writing/validating OpenAPI specs.

Plan implementation strategy and system design before building — turn a feature into an ordered plan, identify files/modules to touch, weigh architectural trade-offs, and sequence work. Use at the start of any nontrivial or multi-component task. Produces plans, not code.