microservice-researcher

---
name: microservice-researcher
description: |
license: MIT
---

# Microservice Researcher

## When to Use

- Research **domain decomposition**, bounded contexts, and candidate service boundaries
- Compare **microservices vs modular monolith** (or other styles) with explicit trade-offs
- Analyze **sync vs async** integration, data ownership, and consistency models at decision level
- Evaluate **saga vs 2PC**, outbox, and choreography/orchestration without implementation tutorials
- Define **API and contract evolution** strategy (versioning, compatibility, deprecation)
- Plan **monolith-to-microservices** migration (strangler, parallel run, cutover criteria)
- Align services with **Team Topologies** (stream-aligned, platform, enabling, complicated-subsystem)
- Assess **build vs buy vs managed** for cross-cutting capabilities
- Quantify **NFR impact** (latency budgets, reliability, operability, cost) per boundary option
- Produce **ADRs**, options matrices, and research memos with a clear recommendation

## When NOT to Use

- Write or refactor production microservice code, handlers, or deployables → `senior-software-engineer`
- Operate Kubernetes clusters, Terraform modules, or CI/CD pipelines only → `platform-engineer`, `cloud-engineer`, `infrastructure-engineer`
- Design carrier/WAN routing, VPC topology, or physical network without application boundaries → `network-backbone-architect`
- Implement brokers, outbox consumers, schema registry ops, or stream processing → `event-driven-architecture` (when building), `microservices-developer`
- Enterprise portfolio strategy, operating model, and board-level where-to-play → `enterprise-strategist`
- Load-test execution, caching implementation, and horizontal scale tuning only → `high-concurrency-scalability`
- Cross-domain system architecture sign-off unrelated to service decomposition → `senior-system-architecture` (hand off when scope is whole-estate ADR)
- Inventory, dependency maps, SLO gaps, API drift, or operational health on a **live** estate → `microservices-analyst`

## Related skills

| Need | Skill |
|---|---|
| Existing estate inventory, coupling, SLO/API drift, ops health | `microservices-analyst` |
| Cross-system ADRs, C4, estate-wide NFR sign-off | `senior-system-architecture` |
| Event contracts, brokers, outbox, sagas (implementation) | `event-driven-architecture` |
| Service code, gRPC/REST, twelve-factor deployables | `senior-software-engineer`, `microservices-developer` |
| IDP, golden paths, paved roads | `platform-engineer` |
| Cloud landing zone, IaC, cluster delivery | `infrastructure-engineer`, `cloud-engineer` |
| Application throughput, caching, scale testing | `high-concurrency-scalability` |
| Enterprise strategy, portfolio, org design | `enterprise-strategist` |
| Enterprise API hub, iPaaS, B2B integration programs | `enterprise-integration-api-developer` |
| Rollout, cutover, and rollback tactics | `deployment-strategist` |

## Core Workflows

### 1. Frame the research question

Capture before comparing boundaries:

- Business capability and **measurable outcome**
- Constraints: teams, timeline, compliance, existing monolith/estate
- **Reversibility** (one-way vs two-way door)
- Non-goals and explicit **out-of-scope** peers

**See `references/microservice_researcher_scope.md`.**

### 2. Decompose the domain

Identify bounded contexts, ubiquitous language, and context maps (upstream/downstream, ACL, OHS).

Produce **candidate services** with ownership hypotheses—not a box diagram without data flow.

**See `references/domain_decomposition_and_boundaries.md`.**

### 3. Integration and consistency

For each boundary, document sync/async choice, data ownership, consistency model, and failure semantics.

Compare **eventual consistency**, **saga** compensation, and **2PC** only when research warrants—not as default distributed transactions.

**See `references/integration_patterns_and_consistency.md`.**

### 4. Contracts and evolution

Define public API/event contracts, versioning rules, compatibility matrix, and deprecation timeline.

**See `references/api_contracts_and_evolution.md`.**

### 5. Migration and organization

Plan strangler slices, parity criteria, dual-write/read duration, and team alignment (Team Topologies).

**See `references/migration_strangler_and_org_alignment.md`.**

### 6. Deliverables and decision record

Package options matrix, NFR table, risks, recommendation, and follow-on owners (build vs research complete).

**See `references/research_deliverables_and_decision_records.md`.**

## Principles

- **Research before split**—boundaries follow domain and team cognition, not org chart alone
- **Prefer reversible experiments**—strangler slices over big-bang when uncertainty is high
- **One writer per aggregate**—document who owns each consistency boundary
- **Make trade-offs explicit**—latency, ops burden, and team autonomy in the same table
- **Cite patterns and literature**—DDD, Team Topologies, enterprise integration patterns—without cargo-culting microservices