Microservices Developer
When to Use
- Decompose a monolith or greenfield system into bounded contexts and service boundaries
- Design REST, gRPC, or event contracts between services with clear ownership
- Choose sync vs async communication and document failure semantics
- Implement resilience—timeouts, retries with jitter, circuit breakers, bulkheads, load shedding
- Enforce database-per-service (or schema-per-service) and avoid shared mutable stores
- Apply saga, outbox, or idempotent consumers for cross-service consistency
- Containerize services with twelve-factor config, health checks, and graceful shutdown
- Add observability—correlation/trace IDs, RED metrics, structured logs, trace propagation
- Plan API versioning, deprecation, and backward compatibility at gateway or mesh edge
- Introduce contract tests or consumer-driven contract checks between teams
When NOT to Use
- Operate Kubernetes clusters, Helm platform add-ons, or cluster SRE only →
platform-engineer, cluster-deployment-engineer
- Define org-wide SLO programs, error budgets, and PRR gates →
site-reliability-engineer
- Design enterprise iPaaS, canonical enterprise models, or B2B integration hubs →
enterprise-integration-api-developer
- Build monolith features, general RFCs, or stack-agnostic code review without service split →
senior-software-engineer
- Implement CI/CD pipelines, GitOps, or release automation only →
devops
- Provision VPC, managed cloud services, or landing zones →
cloud-engineer, infrastructure-engineer
- Gate production builds and artifact promotion policy →
build-validator
- Profile p99 latency and run load/soak tests as the main task →
performance-engineer
- Classified air-gapped pipelines, ATO evidence, cleared promotion →
classified-software-devsecops-engineer
Related skills
| Need |
Skill |
| General service design, RFCs, refactoring |
senior-software-engineer |
| Internal developer platform, golden paths |
platform-engineer |
| SLOs, error budgets, reliability program |
site-reliability-engineer |
| Enterprise integration, OpenAPI hub, iPaaS |
enterprise-integration-api-developer |
| CI/CD, GitOps, deploy pipelines |
devops |
| Cloud networking, IAM, managed services |
cloud-engineer |
| Terraform modules and core IaC |
infrastructure-engineer |
| Build gates and promotion validation |
build-validator |
| Profiling, load tests, latency budgets |
performance-engineer |
| Cross-system ADRs and NFR sign-off |
senior-system-architecture |
| Rollout cutover and change tiers |
deployment-strategist |
| Pipeline SAST, SBOM, supply chain |
devsecops |
Core Workflows
1. Scope and boundaries
Map domains, define service APIs, and document non-goals.
See references/microservices_developer_scope.md and references/service_boundaries_and_design.md.
2. Communication and contracts
Pick sync/async patterns; define schemas, errors, and versioning.
See references/communication_sync_async.md.
3. Resilience and reliability
Apply timeouts, retries, breakers, and failure isolation per dependency.
See references/resilience_and_reliability.md.
4. Data, events, and consistency
Own data per service; use outbox/saga where cross-service invariants matter.
See references/data_consistency_and_events.md.
5. Operate, test, and ship
Observability, contract tests, twelve-factor deploy, gateway compatibility.
See references/observability_testing_deployment.md.
Outputs
- Service map — contexts, APIs, data ownership, sync/async edges
- Contract draft — OpenAPI/proto/event schema with error model and versioning note
- Resilience table — per-dependency timeout, retry, breaker, fallback
- Consistency note — saga/outbox/idempotency choice with failure compensation
- Runbook snippet — health checks, dashboards, rollback triggers
Principles
- Prefer fewer, cohesive services over fine-grained chatter; split on change cadence and team boundaries
- Fail fast with explicit timeouts; never unbounded blocking across the network
- Design for partial failure—degrade features, do not cascade outages
- Make contracts testable before production coupling multiplies
1---2name: microservices-developer3description: Guides microservice design and delivery—bounded contexts, service boundaries, REST/gRPC/event APIs, sync vs async tradeoffs, resilience (timeouts, retries, circuit breakers, bulkheads), per-service data ownership, saga and outbox patterns, twelve-factor containers, observability (logs, metrics, trace propagation), API versioning at gateways/meshes, and contract testing. Use for microservices developer, service boundary, bounded context, gRPC between services, circuit breaker, saga pattern, outbox pattern, twelve-factor, contract testing microservices, service decomposition, or event-driven microservice—not K8s platform ops (platform-engineer, site-reliability-engineer), enterprise iPaaS (enterprise-integration-api-developer), monolith-first apps (senior-software-engineer), or classified pipelines (classified-software-devsecops-engineer).4---56# Microservices Developer78## When to Use910- Decompose a monolith or greenfield system into **bounded contexts** and service boundaries11- Design **REST, gRPC, or event** contracts between services with clear ownership12- Choose **sync vs async** communication and document failure semantics13- Implement **resilience**—timeouts, retries with jitter, circuit breakers, bulkheads, load shedding14- Enforce **database-per-service** (or schema-per-service) and avoid shared mutable stores15- Apply **saga**, **outbox**, or idempotent consumers for cross-service consistency16- Containerize services with **twelve-factor** config, health checks, and graceful shutdown17- Add **observability**—correlation/trace IDs, RED metrics, structured logs, trace propagation18- Plan **API versioning**, deprecation, and backward compatibility at gateway or mesh edge19- Introduce **contract tests** or consumer-driven contract checks between teams2021## When NOT to Use2223- Operate Kubernetes clusters, Helm platform add-ons, or cluster SRE only → `platform-engineer`, `cluster-deployment-engineer`24- Define org-wide SLO programs, error budgets, and PRR gates → `site-reliability-engineer`25- Design enterprise iPaaS, canonical enterprise models, or B2B integration hubs → `enterprise-integration-api-developer`26- Build monolith features, general RFCs, or stack-agnostic code review without service split → `senior-software-engineer`27- Implement CI/CD pipelines, GitOps, or release automation only → `devops`28- Provision VPC, managed cloud services, or landing zones → `cloud-engineer`, `infrastructure-engineer`29- Gate production builds and artifact promotion policy → `build-validator`30- Profile p99 latency and run load/soak tests as the main task → `performance-engineer`31- Classified air-gapped pipelines, ATO evidence, cleared promotion → `classified-software-devsecops-engineer`3233## Related skills3435| Need | Skill |36|---|---|37| General service design, RFCs, refactoring | `senior-software-engineer` |38| Internal developer platform, golden paths | `platform-engineer` |39| SLOs, error budgets, reliability program | `site-reliability-engineer` |40| Enterprise integration, OpenAPI hub, iPaaS | `enterprise-integration-api-developer` |41| CI/CD, GitOps, deploy pipelines | `devops` |42| Cloud networking, IAM, managed services | `cloud-engineer` |43| Terraform modules and core IaC | `infrastructure-engineer` |44| Build gates and promotion validation | `build-validator` |45| Profiling, load tests, latency budgets | `performance-engineer` |46| Cross-system ADRs and NFR sign-off | `senior-system-architecture` |47| Rollout cutover and change tiers | `deployment-strategist` |48| Pipeline SAST, SBOM, supply chain | `devsecops` |4950## Core Workflows5152### 1. Scope and boundaries5354Map domains, define service APIs, and document non-goals.5556**See `references/microservices_developer_scope.md` and `references/service_boundaries_and_design.md`.**5758### 2. Communication and contracts5960Pick sync/async patterns; define schemas, errors, and versioning.6162**See `references/communication_sync_async.md`.**6364### 3. Resilience and reliability6566Apply timeouts, retries, breakers, and failure isolation per dependency.6768**See `references/resilience_and_reliability.md`.**6970### 4. Data, events, and consistency7172Own data per service; use outbox/saga where cross-service invariants matter.7374**See `references/data_consistency_and_events.md`.**7576### 5. Operate, test, and ship7778Observability, contract tests, twelve-factor deploy, gateway compatibility.7980**See `references/observability_testing_deployment.md`.**8182## Outputs8384- **Service map** — contexts, APIs, data ownership, sync/async edges85- **Contract draft** — OpenAPI/proto/event schema with error model and versioning note86- **Resilience table** — per-dependency timeout, retry, breaker, fallback87- **Consistency note** — saga/outbox/idempotency choice with failure compensation88- **Runbook snippet** — health checks, dashboards, rollback triggers8990## Principles9192- Prefer **fewer, cohesive services** over fine-grained chatter; split on change cadence and team boundaries93- **Fail fast** with explicit timeouts; never unbounded blocking across the network94- **Design for partial failure**—degrade features, do not cascade outages95- **Make contracts testable** before production coupling multiplies
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