Can this skill assist with database planning?

Yes, it helps define entities, relationships, and invariants, while recommending storage solutions based on specific access patterns and durability requirements.

Is observability included in the design process?

Absolutely. The skill emphasizes logging, metrics, tracing, and alerting signals as core components of the operational readiness checklist.

Does it cover security and compliance?

It includes architectural guidelines for authentication, authorization, least privilege access, and auditability to ensure secure backend deployments.

How does the Backend Design skill help with API development?

It provides explicit guidelines for designing contracts, versioning, and error shapes to ensure consistent, well-documented, and reliable service interfaces.

Backend Design

Name: Backend Design
Author: nicholasgriffintn

bynicholasgriffintn

API Development

Architects robust backend systems, scalable APIs, and production-ready data models with a focus on reliability and security.

About

The Backend Design skill empowers Claude to act as a senior software architect, guiding the creation of high-performance services and resilient infrastructures. It provides comprehensive frameworks for defining data models with strong invariants, designing explicit API contracts, and planning for operational realities like failure modes, scalability, and security. Whether you are building a new microservice from scratch or refactoring an existing system, this skill ensures that architectural decisions are made with clear trade-offs, strong correctness guarantees, and long-term maintainability in mind.

Key Features

Structured API contract definition with versioning and validation strategies
Security-first architecture including AuthN/AuthZ and secrets handling
Reliability planning including error handling, retries, and idempotency
Operational readiness blueprints for logging, metrics, and observability
Detailed data modeling focused on entities, relationships, and invariants
0 GitHub stars

Use Cases

Designing a new REST or GraphQL API with explicit error shapes and validation logic
Implementing failure recovery strategies and consistency models for distributed systems
Planning complex data models and storage strategies for high-throughput applications

About

Key Features

Structured API contract definition with versioning and validation strategies
Security-first architecture including AuthN/AuthZ and secrets handling
Reliability planning including error handling, retries, and idempotency
Operational readiness blueprints for logging, metrics, and observability
Detailed data modeling focused on entities, relationships, and invariants
0 GitHub stars

Use Cases

Designing a new REST or GraphQL API with explicit error shapes and validation logic
Implementing failure recovery strategies and consistency models for distributed systems
Planning complex data models and storage strategies for high-throughput applications