mbuyco/system-design

System Design Skill

Overview

This skill enables the agent to perform robust system design reasoning with explicit attention to quality attributes: performance, scalability, reliability, and security.

When to use

Activate this skill when the task involves:

• Designing a system architecture
• Evaluating design trade-offs (performance vs cost vs complexity)
• Recommending architectural patterns
• Identifying non-functional requirements

Instructions

1. Start by identifying the contextual constraints (scale, latency, consistency, security requirements).
2. Enumerate system components and interactions.
3. For each major quality attribute (performance, reliability, security), provide explicit reasoning on trade-offs.
4. Recommend patterns (e.g., microservices, event-driven, caching strategies) and justify selection.
5. Produce a structured design document (sections: Overview, Requirements, Components, Quality Attribute Analysis, Diagrams/References).

Examples

Input: “Design a scalable document search system for 10M users with sub-second queries and secure access controls.”
Output:

• Requirements breakdown
• Quality attribute analysis
• Suggested architecture pattern
• Estimated throughput/latency

Edge Cases

• Conflicting non-functional requirements
• Undefined performance constraints