Backend Development

Backend engineering guidance for Node.js/TypeScript and Go projects. Covers everything from adding a small feature to designing a new microservice — including vague tasks where you need to figure out the right approach from context.

Related Skills:

• kavak-documentation — for Kavak-specific patterns (kbroker, STS, GitLab CI, Docker)
• test-driven-development — use for new features and bug fixes (Red-Green-Refactor)
• Check .claude/CLAUDE.md or .cursor/rules/* for project-specific conventions

MCP: Use kavak-platform/platform_docs_search to query Kavak internal docs and kavak-platform/search_resource for workload/infrastructure info before implementing.

First: Understand the Codebase

Before writing any code, explore the project to understand its structure, patterns, and existing implementations. This matters because the biggest source of wasted effort is reimplementing something that already exists — or writing code that clashes with the project's established patterns.

1. Read the project structure — identify the architecture, naming conventions, and patterns in use
2. Search for similar code — extract keywords from your task (verbs, nouns, domain concepts) and search. You're looking for code you can reuse, extend, or extract shared logic from
3. Document your reuse decision — REUSE (>70% similar), EXTEND (50-70%), EXTRACT (shared helper), or NEW (<30% similar)