Agent skill

microservices-patterns

Comprehensive microservices architecture patterns covering service decomposition, communication, data management, and resilience strategies. Use when designing distributed systems, breaking down monoliths, or implementing service-to-service communication.

View SKILL.md on GitHub Repository
Stars 13
Forks 6

Install this agent skill to your Project

npx add-skill https://github.com/NickCrew/Claude-Cortex/tree/main/skills/microservices-patterns

SKILL.md

Microservices Architecture Patterns

Expert guidance for designing, implementing, and operating microservices architectures.

When to Use This Skill

  • Breaking down monolithic applications into services
  • Designing distributed systems from scratch
  • Implementing service communication patterns (sync/async)
  • Managing data consistency across services
  • Building resilient distributed systems
  • Defining service boundaries and API contracts

Core Principles

  1. Single Responsibility - Each service has one reason to change
  2. Independent Deployability - No coordination required for deployments
  3. Decentralized Data - Each service owns its data exclusively
  4. Design for Failure - Embrace failures, build resilience
  5. Automate Everything - Deployment, scaling, and recovery

Quick Reference

Load detailed patterns on-demand:

Task Load Reference
Define service boundaries and decompose monoliths skills/microservices-patterns/references/service-decomposition.md
Implement service communication (sync/async) skills/microservices-patterns/references/communication-patterns.md
Manage data consistency and transactions skills/microservices-patterns/references/data-management.md
Build resilient systems (circuit breakers, retries) skills/microservices-patterns/references/resilience-patterns.md
Add observability (tracing, logging, metrics) skills/microservices-patterns/references/observability.md
Plan deployments and migrations skills/microservices-patterns/references/deployment-migration.md

Workflow

1. Understand Requirements

  • Map business capabilities and domains
  • Assess scalability/resilience needs
  • Identify team boundaries

2. Define Service Boundaries

Load references/service-decomposition.md for:

  • Business capability decomposition
  • DDD bounded contexts
  • Service boundary validation

3. Design Communication

Load references/communication-patterns.md for:

  • Synchronous: API Gateway, REST, gRPC
  • Asynchronous: Message Queue, Pub/Sub, Event Sourcing

4. Manage Data

Load references/data-management.md for:

  • Database per service pattern
  • Saga distributed transactions
  • CQRS read/write optimization

5. Build Resilience

Load references/resilience-patterns.md for:

  • Circuit breakers
  • Retry with exponential backoff
  • Bulkhead isolation
  • Rate limiting and timeouts

6. Add Observability

Load references/observability.md for:

  • Distributed tracing
  • Centralized logging
  • Metrics and monitoring

7. Plan Deployment

Load references/deployment-migration.md for:

  • Blue-Green, Canary, Rolling deployments
  • Strangler Fig migration pattern

Common Mistakes

  1. Distributed Monolith - Tightly coupled, must deploy together
  2. Shared Database - Multiple services accessing same database
  3. Chatty APIs - Excessive synchronous service calls
  4. Missing Circuit Breakers - No cascading failure protection
  5. No Observability - Deploying without tracing/logging/metrics
  6. Ignoring Network Failures - Assuming reliable network
  7. No API Versioning - Breaking changes without versioning

Fixes: Load relevant reference files for detailed solutions.

Resources

  • Books: "Building Microservices" (Newman), "Microservices Patterns" (Richardson)
  • Sites: microservices.io, martinfowler.com/microservices
  • Tools: Kubernetes, Istio, Kafka, Kong, Jaeger, Prometheus

Recommended Agent Skills

Expand your agent's capabilities with these related and highly-rated skills.

NickCrew/Claude-Cortex

claude-consult

Consult Claude specialist agents during implementation for codebase understanding, pattern checking, security review, debugging help, and more. Use this skill whenever you're unsure about conventions, stuck on a failure, or need expert input before writing code. Does not replace the formal review gates in agent-loops — this is for mid-implementation consultation.

13 6
Explore
NickCrew/Claude-Cortex

doc-quality-review

Assess documentation quality across readability, consistency, audience fit, and prose clarity. Produces a scored review with actionable findings. This skill should be used before releases, during doc reviews, or when documentation feels unclear or inconsistent.

13 6
Explore
NickCrew/Claude-Cortex

event-driven-architecture

Event-driven architecture patterns with event sourcing, CQRS, and message-driven communication. Use when designing distributed systems, microservices communication, or systems requiring eventual consistency and scalability.

13 6
Explore
NickCrew/Claude-Cortex

prompt-engineering

Optimize prompts for LLMs and AI systems with structured techniques, evaluation patterns, and synthetic test data generation. Use when building AI features, improving agent performance, or crafting system prompts.

13 6
Explore
NickCrew/Claude-Cortex

compliance-audit

Regulatory compliance auditing across GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC 2, and ISO frameworks with automated evidence collection and gap analysis. Use when conducting compliance assessments, preparing for certifications, or implementing regulatory controls.

13 6
Explore
NickCrew/Claude-Cortex

react-performance-optimization

React performance optimization patterns using memoization, code splitting, and efficient rendering strategies. Use when optimizing slow React applications, reducing bundle size, or improving user experience with large datasets.

13 6
Explore

Didn't find tool you were looking for?

Be as detailed as possible for better results