Guide · Agent skill
How to use the Microservices Architect agent skill
Updated · written with AI from the project's own documentation and checked against our catalogue data
The Microservices Architect skill is a set of instructions and reference notes that tells an AI agent to act as a senior distributed-systems architect. Once installed, it helps you split a monolith into services, choose how those services communicate, plan data ownership, and add resilience and tracing. This guide explains what the skill does, how to install it, how to trigger it, and where its limits are.
Microservices ArchitectJeffallan/claude-skills · MIT Download the skill Quick start
- 1Download the ZIP. Download the skill ZIP from the page you are reading.
- 2Unzip the skill. Unzip it into ~/.claude/skills/ for personal use, or into a project's .claude/skills/ folder.
- 3Or upload in the Claude apps. In the Claude apps, go to Settings → Capabilities → Skills and upload the skill.
- 4Describe your architecture task. Use plain language about designing services, decomposing a monolith or adding patterns like sagas or tracing.
- 5Review the boundary diagram first. Check the proposed bounded contexts and data ownership before accepting communication or resilience designs.
- 6Adapt the examples. Use the Node.js, Python, TypeScript or Kubernetes examples only as starting points and test them in your own stack.
What the skill makes the agent do
The skill guides the agent through a six-step workflow: domain analysis to find bounded contexts, communication design, data strategy, resilience, observability, and deployment. Each step has a validation checkpoint, such as confirming each candidate service owns its data exclusively and can be deployed independently.
- Identify service boundaries using domain-driven design
- Choose synchronous or asynchronous communication (REST, gRPC, events)
- Plan database-per-service data ownership and eventual consistency
- Add circuit breakers, retries, timeouts, bulkheads and fallbacks
- Add correlation IDs, distributed tracing and health probes
- Produce a service boundary diagram and deployment requirements
Install the Microservices Architect skill
Download the skill ZIP from the page you are reading. Unzip it into one of two locations: ~/.claude/skills/ to make it available across your projects, or a project's .claude/skills/ folder to limit it to that project.
If you use the Claude apps instead, upload the skill under Settings → Capabilities → Skills.
- Personal install: unzip into ~/.claude/skills/
- Project install: unzip into .claude/skills/ inside your project
- Claude apps: Settings → Capabilities → Skills, then upload
Trigger the skill with natural requests
You do not need a special command. Describe the task in plain language that matches the skill's scope: designing distributed systems, decomposing monoliths, or implementing patterns such as saga, event sourcing, CQRS, service mesh or distributed tracing. Terms like service boundaries, domain-driven design, Istio and Kubernetes microservices also appear in its trigger list.
- "Help me split this Rails monolith into services by bounded context."
- "Should the order and payment services talk over REST or Kafka?"
- "Design a saga for checkout that can roll back if shipping fails."
- "Add circuit breakers and correlation IDs to these three services."
What you get back: examples and output
The skill includes example code for correlation ID middleware in Node.js with Express, a circuit breaker using Python's pybreaker library, a saga orchestration skeleton in TypeScript, and Kubernetes liveness and readiness probes. The examples are illustrative: they are not tested against a specific stack, so adapt them to your environment.
The skill asks for five deliverables: a service boundary diagram, communication patterns, data ownership and consistency model, resilience patterns for each integration point, and deployment requirements.
livenessProbe:
httpGet:
path: /health/live
port: 8080
readinessProbe:
httpGet:
path: /health/ready
port: 8080What the skill needs and safety notes
The skill itself does not run scripts and does not use the network. Node.js with Express, Python with requests and pybreaker, TypeScript and Kubernetes are needed only if you use the provided examples. Message brokers and service meshes such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, Istio and Linkerd are referenced as options, not requirements.
The skill produces guidance and examples, not deployed infrastructure. Review every recommendation before acting on it, because the skill's rules push toward distributed design and can over-engineer a small project.
- Runs scripts: no
- Uses network: no
- Output is guidance and examples, not deployed systems
Tips for better results
Give the agent concrete context: the current code layout, the main workflows, team ownership, and traffic or latency requirements. The skill's own rules say that only query/command pairs with sub-100 ms latency targets should use synchronous calls, so state your latency needs.
Ask for one area at a time, such as boundaries first and then data strategy, so you can check each step before moving on.
- Include team structure and deployment constraints in your request
- Ask for a boundary diagram before asking for code
- Check whether a single deployable would be simpler for your application
What people use it for
- Planning a migration from a monolith to microservices by defining bounded contexts
- Reviewing whether a saga or event-sourcing design fits a checkout or order workflow
- Adding circuit breakers, correlation IDs and health probes to existing services
- Choosing between REST, gRPC and async messaging for a specific service call
Frequently asked questions
How do I install the microservices-architect skill?
Download the skill ZIP from the page, then unzip it into ~/.claude/skills/ for personal use or into a project's .claude/skills/ folder. In the Claude apps, you can instead upload it under Settings → Capabilities → Skills.
Is the Microservices Architect skill free?
The skill is published under the MIT licence, as stated on this page. Check the licence file in the repository for the full terms.
What do I need to run it?
The skill itself runs no scripts and uses no network. Node.js with Express, Python with requests and pybreaker, TypeScript and Kubernetes are only needed if you use the provided examples.
Does the skill deploy microservices for me?
No. It produces architecture guidance, diagrams, and example code. The examples are not tested against a specific stack, so you still build and deploy the system yourself.
Is this skill a good alternative to a microservices consultant?
It can help structure your thinking and draft designs, but it does not replace an experienced architect reviewing your specific constraints. Use it as a starting point for a design review.
When should I not use microservices architect?
Avoid it for small applications where a single deployable is simpler. The skill's rules push toward distributed design, so it can over-engineer a project that does not need it.
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Our verdict
This skill suits engineers planning a monolith-to-microservices migration, architects reviewing service boundaries or saga designs, and teams adding circuit breakers, correlation IDs and health probes. Skip it if your application is small enough to stay as one deployable, or if you need finished infrastructure rather than guidance and examples.
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