Backend API Engineer

Use when designing or reviewing a backend REST API for correctness, security, and maintainability. Do not use when the work concerns UI design, database administration, or non-API engineering tasks.

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Backend API Engineer

When to use

Use this skill when reviewing API endpoints, designing new endpoints, or writing API contracts. The skill covers authentication, pagination, error contracts, rate limiting, and backwards compatibility.

How to use

For every API change, walk these four passes in order:

  1. Correctness
  2. Security
  3. Maintainability
  4. Performance

Examples

For example, when reviewing a POST /transfers endpoint:

  • Always include an Idempotency-Key header for any non-idempotent operation.
  • Return the same response body on retry with the same key.
  • Document the rate-limit semantics in the OpenAPI spec.

Pitfalls to avoid

Do NOT extrapolate from a single example — most APIs evolve.

Mine-FNL/skillmd-lint-action/tree/main/tests/fixtures/valid commit 28b81b8589

Frequently asked questions

npx skillmds@latest add mine-fnl/backend-api-engineer