Backend engineering intelligence for coding agents. A reusable skill system for auditing, architecting, debugging, securing, optimizing, and production-hardening backend systems using curated engineering knowledge, deterministic inspection, architecture patterns, evaluation rubrics, and stack-specific recipes.
| Framework / Language | Persistence & Data | Async & Messaging | Agent Runtimes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Node.js (Express, Fastify, NestJS), Python (FastAPI, Django, Flask), Go, Rust | PostgreSQL, SQLite, DuckDB, MySQL, Redis, S3 / Object Storage | Redis BullMQ, Celery, RabbitMQ, Kafka, AWS SQS | Pi Agent, Hermes, Codex, Claude Code |
AI coding agents excel at producing functional endpoints, but frequently introduce backend "slop": premature microservices, unindexed database tables, missing transaction boundaries, silent exception handling, wildcard CORS headers, unvalidated user inputs, and missing idempotency rules.
backend-engineering-intelligence equips AI coding agents with the pragmatic judgment and workflows of senior backend architects, principal database engineers, and production reliability engineers. It guides agents to build software that is correct, secure, reliable, performant, and maintainable without turning them into "architecture astronauts".
The core priority ranking for all backend intelligence recommendations is:
CORRECTNESS > DATA INTEGRITY > RELIABILITY > SECURITY > OBSERVABILITY > MAINTAINABILITY > PERFORMANCE > SCALABILITY > ARCHITECTURAL NOVELTY
- Pragmatic Monolith First: Keep services together until independent deployment or team boundaries demand splitting.
- Evidence Before Cache: Measure SQL query latency before adding Redis or caching layers.
- Data Boundary Integrity: Validate all input data at system boundaries; enforce constraints at the database layer.
- Resilience Over Magic: Idempotency rules, timeouts, and transaction limits precede complex retry or queue orchestration.
- No Architecture Astronauts: Reject enterprise boilerplate, empty interface abstractions, and premature microservices.
| Skill Command | Role | Description | Modifies Code? | Best Used For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
/skill:backend-director |
Orchestrator | Master intent-translation and backend director skill. Translates vague prompts ("Bro this backend is messy") into structured engineering briefs and routes work to specialists. | Yes | Vague or informal backend refactoring, production prep, or performance requests. |
/skill:backend-audit |
Specialist | Non-destructive backend system assessment. Scores project across 14 rubric dimensions and flags anti-slop violations. | No | Code reviews, architectural health checks, and pre-release audits. |
/skill:api-architect |
Specialist | API design and contract specialist. Designs REST, RPC, GraphQL contracts, schema validations, pagination, error models, and idempotency key handling. | Yes | Endpoint design, schema validation, contract stability, and API refactoring. |
/skill:data-layer |
Specialist | Database and persistence specialist. Designs schemas, migrations, SQL queries, indexes, connection pools, transaction boundaries, and ORM usage. | Yes | Schema design, N+1 query elimination, indexing hot paths, and migration safety. |
/skill:reliability-pass |
Specialist | Production reliability specialist. Audits and applies timeouts, retries, idempotency, circuit breakers, graceful shutdown, and health checks. | Yes | Preventing cascade failures, worker queue crashes, and zombie connection leaks. |
/skill:security-pass |
Specialist | Practical application security review. Checks AuthN/AuthZ, secrets management, input validation, SQLi, SSRF, CORS, path traversal, and LLM tool safety. | Yes | Hardening endpoints, secret leakage prevention, and input sanitization. |
/skill:performance-pass |
Specialist | Evidence-based performance engineering. Establishes baseline measurement → profiles SQL/serialization → eliminates bottlenecks → benchmarks again. | Yes | Latency reduction, high throughput tuning, memory leak fixes, and payload optimization. |
/skill:production-readiness |
Specialist | Last-20%-before-launch specialist. Verifies environment configs, migrations, health checks, structured logging, secrets, backups, rollback plans, and smoke tests. | Yes | Preparing prototypes for live production demos, client deployments, and scaling. |
Projects are evaluated out of 100 points across 14 dimensions defined in evals/rubric.md:
- Architectural Coherence (/10)
- Correctness (/10)
- API Contract Quality (/10)
- Data Integrity (/10)
- Security (/10)
- Reliability (/10)
- Error Handling (/10)
- Observability (/10)
- Performance (/10)
- Scalability Appropriateness (/10)
- Testing (/10)
- Deployment Readiness (/10)
- Developer Experience (/10)
- Maintainability (/10)
A high score in general dimensions cannot mask critical risks. The audit automatically issues a BLOCKER verdict if any of the following exist:
- Broken or bypassable Authentication/Authorization
- Data Loss / Unsafe Destructive Schema Migration
- SQL Injection or Remote Code Execution vulnerability
- Hardcoded Secrets / Credentials in Source Control
- Missing Transaction Boundaries on Multi-Write Operations
- Unhandled HTTP 500 exceptions on primary user flows
Makes the backend intelligence package available across all Pi Agent projects on your system:
pi install git:github.com/kerwinarlan/backend-engineering-intelligenceAdds the skills to the current project's .pi/settings.json:
pi install git:github.com/kerwinarlan/backend-engineering-intelligence -l/skill:backend-director
Bro this backend is super messy. Requests are timing out when DB gets loaded, and I'm getting random 500s on checkout. Help me get it production ready.
/skill:backend-audit
Run static anti-slop analysis and security checks against any backend codebase:
npm run audit -- /path/to/target-backendbackend-engineering-intelligence/
├── README.md
├── AGENTS.md
├── LICENSE
├── package.json
├── tsconfig.json
│
├── skills/ # 8 Canonical Pi Agent Skills
│ ├── backend-director/ # Master Intent-Translation & Orchestrator
│ ├── backend-audit/ # Non-destructive 14-point audit
│ ├── api-architect/ # REST/RPC/GraphQL contract design & schema validation
│ ├── data-layer/ # Schemas, SQL, migrations, indexing, transactions
│ ├── reliability-pass/ # Timeouts, retries, idempotency, graceful shutdown
│ ├── security-pass/ # AuthN/AuthZ, OWASP Top 10, LLM tool boundaries
│ ├── performance-pass/ # Baseline -> Profile -> Bottleneck -> Benchmark
│ └── production-readiness/ # Env config, health checks, logging, rollback
│
├── .pi/ # Local Project Config
│ ├── settings.json
│ └── skills -> ../skills # Symlink to skills/
│
├── docs/ # Architectural Specifications
│ ├── ARCHITECTURE.md # Progressive disclosure design
│ ├── ANTI_SLOP.md # Anti-overengineering rules across 9 backend domains
│ ├── DESIGN_PHILOSOPHY.md # Core priorities & decision rules
│ ├── TAXONOMY.md # Categorization of backend patterns
│ └── CONTRIBUTING_KNOWLEDGE.md
│
├── knowledge/ # Curated Engineering Knowledge
│ ├── architecture/ # Modular monoliths, service boundaries, jobs
│ ├── api/ # REST, pagination, idempotency, versioning
│ ├── data/ # Transactions, schema, query plans, connection pools
│ ├── reliability/ # Timeouts, retries, health/readiness probes
│ ├── security/ # Auth, validation, injection, secrets, LLM safety
│ ├── observability/ # Structured logs, metrics, tracing, correlation IDs
│ ├── performance/ # Profiling, indexing, caching strategies, serialization
│ ├── testing/ # Integration tests, migration tests, failure injection
│ ├── deployment/ # Twelve-factor, health probes, graceful shutdown
│ ├── ai-backends/ # LLM boundaries, prompt injection, token limits
│ ├── contexts/ # SaaS, AI Agents, Data Pipelines, Civic-Tech, Mobile
│ ├── recipes/ # Express, FastAPI, Prisma, SQLAlchemy, Redis
│ └── references/patterns/ # JSON reference catalog of proven backend patterns
│
├── evals/ # Audit Rubric & Test Harness
│ ├── rubric.md # 14-Dimension Rubric & Critical Gates
│ ├── eval-fixture.ts # Evaluation harness runner
│ └── fixtures/ # Sample anti-pattern vs clean fixtures
│
└── scripts/ # Deterministic Inspection Tooling
├── validate-skills.ts # Skill schema validator
├── validate-knowledge.ts # Knowledge base validator
├── audit-project.ts # CLI backend anti-slop audit engine
└── db-inspector.ts # Schema & migration inspector
MIT License © 2026 Kerwin Arlan