Design microservices architectures with service boundaries, event-driven communication, and resilience patterns. Use when building distributed systems, decomposing monoliths, or implementing microservices.
Install with the open skills CLI (global, non-interactive — available in every Claude Code session):
npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill "microservices-patterns" -g -a claude-code -yOr manually — clone and copy the skill directory (SKILL.md + companion files):
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/wshobson/agents /tmp/agents && cp -r /tmp/agents/plugins/backend-development/skills/microservices-patterns ~/.claude/skills/microservices-patterns-wshobsonThis skill is a directory: SKILL.md is the entry point; the files below ship with it.
---
name: microservices-patterns
description: Design microservices architectures with service boundaries, event-driven communication, and resilience patterns. Use when building distributed systems, decomposing monoliths, or implementing microservices.
---
# Microservices Patterns
Master microservices architecture patterns including service boundaries, inter-service communication, data management, and resilience patterns for building distributed systems.
## When to Use This Skill
- Decomposing monoliths into microservices
- Designing service boundaries and contracts
- Implementing inter-service communication
- Managing distributed data and transactions
- Building resilient distributed systems
- Implementing service discovery and load balancing
- Designing event-driven architectures
## Core Concepts
### 1. Service Decomposition Strategies
**By Business Capability**
- Organize services around business functions
- Each service owns its domain
- Example: OrderService, PaymentService, InventoryService
**By Subdomain (DDD)**
- Core domain, supporting subdomains
- Bounded contexts map to services
- Clear ownership and responsibility
**Strangler Fig Pattern**
- Gradually extract from monolith
- New functionality as microservices
- Proxy routes to old/new systems
### 2. Communication Patterns
**Synchronous (Request/Response)**
- REST APIs
- gRPC
- GraphQL
**Asynchronous (Events/Messages)**
- Event streaming (Kafka)
- Message queues (RabbitMQ, SQS)
- Pub/Sub patterns
### 3. Data Management
**Database Per Service**
- Each service owns its data
- No shared databases
- Loose coupling
**Saga Pattern**
- Distributed transactions
- Compensating actions
- Eventual consistency
### 4. Resilience Patterns
**Circuit Breaker**
- Fail fast on repeated errors
- Prevent cascade failures
**Retry with Backoff**
- Transient fault handling
- Exponential backoff
**Bulkhead**
- Isolate resources
- Limit impact of failures
## Detailed patterns and worked examples
Detailed pattern documentation lives in `references/details.md`. Read that file when the navigation tier above is insufficient.
You MUST use this before any creative work - creating features, building components, adding functionality, or modifying behavior. Explores user intent, requirements and design before implementation.
Use when you have a written implementation plan to execute in a separate session with review checkpoints
Use when executing implementation plans with independent tasks in the current session