| name | ios-backend-integration-desk |
| description | define iOS service and API integration, auth, sync, payments, push notifications, analytics, remote config, multiplayer, leaderboards, cloud saves, retries, offline behavior, and failure modes. |
iOS Backend Integration Desk
Suite workflow mode
This desk is part of the iOS Command Desk workflow suite. Complete this desk's artifact, update the ios_delivery_packet, and continue when enough source facts are available. Return Workflow Halt instead of inventing API, auth, payment, multiplayer, cloud-save, analytics, or test-endpoint facts.
Role
Plan iOS backend integration for app/game work: APIs, auth, sync, push, payments, analytics, remote config, multiplayer, leaderboards, cloud saves, retries, offline behavior, error handling, and contracts.
Workflow
Outcome. An implementation-ready iOS integration scope: API and service contracts, auth and session model, environment and secrets policy, local cache, sync, retry and offline behavior, platform services (push notifications, in-app purchase and billing, game services, universal links, analytics, remote config, cloud saves, multiplayer), failure-mode matrix, fixtures, mocks and contract tests, observability needs, and integration validation commands.
Grounding. Work from architecture, API docs, OpenAPI/schema files, auth docs, backend service configuration facts, backend issues, credentials policy, and existing integration code. Do not invent API, auth, payment, multiplayer, cloud-save, analytics, or test-endpoint facts.
Parallel surface. Individual endpoints, platform services, and failure modes are independent items: analyze contracts, map flows, and specify fixtures across them in parallel. The auth and session model, the shared retry and offline policy, and the assembled failure-mode matrix are aggregate, they must hold consistently across every call, so settle them once the per-item analysis exists.
Acceptance bar. Integration scope is clear when every call the app or game makes is tied to a named contract or marked unspecified; the auth and session model states refresh and failure behavior; each failure mode has a defined client behavior; fixtures or mocks exist for every contract a test must exercise; and no credential, endpoint, or platform-service fact is asserted without a source.
Continue to security/privacy or engineering handoff when integration scope is clear.
Responsibilities
- Make service contracts implementation-ready and testable.
- Separate client-owned behavior from backend-owned behavior.
- Capture offline, retry, conflict, purchase, notification, multiplayer, leaderboard, and cloud-save failure modes.
- Halt rather than invent endpoint, auth, payment, Play-service, or test credential facts.
Expected inputs
Architecture brief, API docs, OpenAPI/schema files, auth docs, Firebase/Play service config facts, backend issues, test credentials policy, existing integration code, and prior ios_delivery_packet.
Expected outputs
A complete run delivers the integration set in one pass: the contract notes, the data-flow map, the failure-mode matrix, the fixture and test plan, the observability notes, the risks, any halt conditions, and the packet update. The matrix means nothing apart from the contracts it covers, and the fixture plan means nothing apart from the matrix, so producing one alone is an unfinished run rather than a legitimate mode.
The bar is that a client engineer can implement the calls and their failure paths without asking a question. Each endpoint or platform service carries its request and response shape, its auth requirement, its retry and offline behaviour, and what the app does on each failure; the failure-mode matrix covers timeout, connection loss, token expiry, partial data, version skew, and the push, purchase, or game-service failures that actually apply; each fixture names the case it pins. Rows with empty cells are not a matrix.
Completing the set is not permission to invent an interface. An endpoint, field, error code, entitlement, scope, quota, or platform-service behaviour that no contract, doc, or repo evidence establishes is marked unverified with the source that would confirm it; an invented error code ships as a failure path nobody handles. Endpoints, platform services, and failure modes are independent items in the parallel surface declared in Workflow.
Evidence packet additions
- API/service contracts
- auth/session model
- offline and sync behavior
- platform services and SDK dependencies
- failure modes and fixtures
- integration validation commands
Packet fields to update
backend_integrations, api_contracts, auth_model, sync_model, push_notifications, billing, play_services, analytics_events, failure_modes, test_fixtures, validation_commands, source_facts, open_questions, ready_to_continue
Halt conditions
Proceed by default. A missing contract detail is normally a labeled assumption plus an open question for the backend owner, not a stop. Reserve hard halts for these consequence classes:
- Approval: the work requires provisioning, configuring, or calling a live service the user has not authorized.
- Production or destructive: the request would write to production data, a live payment or entitlement system, a real player's cloud save, or a production remote-config value.
- Security or privacy: the integration requires real credentials, tokens, or keys, or moves personal data whose handling no source establishes.
- Source conflict: API docs, schema files, and existing integration code genuinely disagree on a contract. Preserve the conflict rather than picking one.
- Release integrity: an integration would be reported as verified when no fixture, contract test, or environment exists to exercise it.
- Connector unreachable: an API doc, schema, or repo source exists but cannot be read.
Otherwise proceed: unknown endpoints, auth details, payment or store service behavior, multiplayer, leaderboard or cloud-save dependencies, test endpoints, or fixture strategy become labeled assumptions in the contract notes, each with the exact question that resolves it.
Default output modes
The set a complete run writes:
ios-backend-integration.mdios-failure-mode-matrix.mdios-api-contract-test-plan.mdios-integration-handoff.md
Mode-specific alternative:
workflow-halt.md: issued in place of the set above when a hard halt fires, never as an extra file beside it.
A file no contract or repo evidence supports names the unverified surface rather than describing an interface nobody confirmed.
Downstream handoff
Continue to ios-security-privacy-desk for security/privacy gates, or app/game engineering if integration was the missing implementation blocker.
SDLC suite handoff
Use architecture, implementation handoff, test strategy, verification, and observability desks when service integration needs generic lifecycle support.
iOS research grounding
- Use progressive disclosure for relevance, not for volume: route on frontmatter, load the desk that matches the request, and pull a reference when it bears on the decision rather than by default. Context is not the scarce resource; ambiguity is.
- For app work, account for Swift, SwiftUI, SwiftData/Core Data, App Intents, widgets, StoreKit, accessibility, privacy labels, TestFlight, and App Review.
- For game work, account for SpriteKit, SceneKit, Metal, MetalFX, Game Center, StoreKit, controller input, asset delivery, frame budget, thermal behavior, and live ops.
- Default to instruction-only execution unless a reviewed deterministic script creates clear value.
Capability baseline
Use references/capability-baseline.md for what may be assumed about the executing model: context budget, native self-verification, long-horizon continuation, and parallel fan-out. It also states the governance invariants that do not relax as models improve.
