backend-development-feature-development

Orchestrate end-to-end feature development from requirements to production deployment:

[Extended thinking: This workflow orchestrates specialized agents through comprehensive feature development phases - from discovery and planning through implementation, testing, and deployment. Each phase builds on previous outputs, ensuring coherent feature delivery. The workflow supports multiple development methodologies (traditional, TDD/BDD, DDD), feature complexity levels, and modern deployment strategies including feature flags, gradual rollouts, and observability-first development. Agents receive detailed context from previous phases to maintain consistency and quality throughout the development lifecycle.]

Use this skill when

Coordinating end-to-end feature delivery across backend, frontend, and data

Managing requirements, architecture, implementation, testing, and rollout

Planning multi-service changes with deployment and monitoring needs

Aligning teams on scope, risks, and success metrics

Do not use this skill when

The task is a small, isolated backend change or bug fix

You only need a single specialist task, not a full workflow

There is no deployment or cross-team coordination involved

Instructions

Confirm feature scope, success metrics, and constraints.

Select a methodology and define phase outputs.

Orchestrate implementation, testing, and security validation.

Prepare rollout, monitoring, and documentation plans.

Safety

Avoid production changes without approvals and rollback plans.

Validate data migrations and feature flags in staging first.

Configuration Options

Development Methodology

traditional: Sequential development with testing after implementation

tdd: Test-Driven Development with red-green-refactor cycles

bdd: Behavior-Driven Development with scenario-based testing

ddd: Domain-Driven Design with bounded contexts and aggregates

Feature Complexity

simple: Single service, minimal integration (1-2 days)

medium: Multiple services, moderate integration (3-5 days)

complex: Cross-domain, extensive integration (1-2 weeks)

epic: Major architectural changes, multiple teams (2+ weeks)

Deployment Strategy

direct: Immediate rollout to all users

canary: Gradual rollout starting with 5% of traffic

feature-flag: Controlled activation via feature toggles

blue-green: Zero-downtime deployment with instant rollback

a-b-test: Split traffic for experimentation and metrics

Phase 1: Discovery & Requirements Planning

Business Analysis & Requirements

- Use Task tool with subagent_type="business-analytics::business-analyst"
- Prompt: "Analyze feature requirements for: $ARGUMENTS. Define user stories, acceptance criteria, success metrics, and business value. Identify stakeholders, dependencies, and risks. Create feature specification document with clear scope boundaries."
- Expected output: Requirements document with user stories, success metrics, risk assessment
- Context: Initial feature request and business context

Technical Architecture Design

- Use Task tool with subagent_type="comprehensive-review::architect-review"
- Prompt: "Design technical architecture for feature: $ARGUMENTS. Using requirements: [include business analysis from step 1]. Define service boundaries, API contracts, data models, integration points, and technology stack. Consider scalability, performance, and security requirements."
- Expected output: Technical design document with architecture diagrams, API specifications, data models
- Context: Business requirements, existing system architecture

Feasibility & Risk Assessment

- Use Task tool with subagent_type="security-scanning::security-auditor"
- Prompt: "Assess security implications and risks for feature: $ARGUMENTS. Review architecture: [include technical design from step 2]. Identify security requirements, compliance needs, data privacy concerns, and potential vulnerabilities."
- Expected output: Security assessment with risk matrix, compliance checklist, mitigation strategies
- Context: Technical design, regulatory requirements

Phase 2: Implementation & Development

Backend Services Implementation

- Use Task tool with subagent_type="backend-architect"
- Prompt: "Implement backend services for: $ARGUMENTS. Follow technical design: [include architecture from step 2]. Build RESTful/GraphQL APIs, implement business logic, integrate with data layer, add resilience patterns (circuit breakers, retries), implement caching strategies. Include feature flags for gradual rollout."
- Expected output: Backend services with APIs, business logic, database integration, feature flags
- Context: Technical design, API contracts, data models

Frontend Implementation

- Use Task tool with subagent_type="frontend-mobile-development::frontend-developer"
- Prompt: "Build frontend components for: $ARGUMENTS. Integrate with backend APIs: [include API endpoints from step 4]. Implement responsive UI, state management, error handling, loading states, and analytics tracking. Add feature flag integration for A/B testing capabilities."
- Expected output: Frontend components with API integration, state management, analytics
- Context: Backend APIs, UI/UX designs, user stories

Data Pipeline & Integration

- Use Task tool with subagent_type="data-engineering::data-engineer"
- Prompt: "Build data pipelines for: $ARGUMENTS. Design ETL/ELT processes, implement data validation, create analytics events, set up data quality monitoring. Integrate with product analytics platforms for feature usage tracking."
- Expected output: Data pipelines, analytics events, data quality checks
- Context: Data requirements, analytics needs, existing data infrastructure

Phase 3: Testing & Quality Assurance

Automated Test Suite

- Use Task tool with subagent_type="unit-testing::test-automator"
- Prompt: "Create comprehensive test suite for: $ARGUMENTS. Write unit tests for backend: [from step 4] and frontend: [from step 5]. Add integration tests for API endpoints, E2E tests for critical user journeys, performance tests for scalability validation. Ensure minimum 80% code coverage."
- Expected output: Test suites with unit, integration, E2E, and performance tests
- Context: Implementation code, acceptance criteria, test requirements

Security Validation

- Use Task tool with subagent_type="security-scanning::security-auditor"
- Prompt: "Perform security testing for: $ARGUMENTS. Review implementation: [include backend and frontend from steps 4-5]. Run OWASP checks, penetration testing, dependency scanning, and compliance validation. Verify data encryption, authentication, and authorization."
- Expected output: Security test results, vulnerability report, remediation actions
- Context: Implementation code, security requirements

Performance Optimization

- Use Task tool with subagent_type="application-performance::performance-engineer"
- Prompt: "Optimize performance for: $ARGUMENTS. Analyze backend services: [from step 4] and frontend: [from step 5]. Profile code, optimize queries, implement caching, reduce bundle sizes, improve load times. Set up performance budgets and monitoring."
- Expected output: Performance improvements, optimization report, performance metrics
- Context: Implementation code, performance requirements

Phase 4: Deployment & Monitoring

Deployment Strategy & Pipeline

- Use Task tool with subagent_type="deployment-strategies::deployment-engineer"
- Prompt: "Prepare deployment for: $ARGUMENTS. Create CI/CD pipeline with automated tests: [from step 7]. Configure feature flags for gradual rollout, implement blue-green deployment, set up rollback procedures. Create deployment runbook and rollback plan."
- Expected output: CI/CD pipeline, deployment configuration, rollback procedures
- Context: Test suites, infrastructure requirements, deployment strategy

Observability & Monitoring

- Use Task tool with subagent_type="observability-monitoring::observability-engineer"
- Prompt: "Set up observability for: $ARGUMENTS. Implement distributed tracing, custom metrics, error tracking, and alerting. Create dashboards for feature usage, performance metrics, error rates, and business KPIs. Set up SLOs/SLIs with automated alerts."
- Expected output: Monitoring dashboards, alerts, SLO definitions, observability infrastructure
- Context: Feature implementation, success metrics, operational requirements

Documentation & Knowledge Transfer

- Use Task tool with subagent_type="documentation-generation::docs-architect"
- Prompt: "Generate comprehensive documentation for: $ARGUMENTS. Create API documentation, user guides, deployment guides, troubleshooting runbooks. Include architecture diagrams, data flow diagrams, and integration guides. Generate automated changelog from commits."
- Expected output: API docs, user guides, runbooks, architecture documentation
- Context: All previous phases' outputs

Execution Parameters

Required Parameters

--feature: Feature name and description

--methodology: Development approach (traditional|tdd|bdd|ddd)

--complexity: Feature complexity level (simple|medium|complex|epic)

Optional Parameters

--deployment-strategy: Deployment approach (direct|canary|feature-flag|blue-green|a-b-test)

--test-coverage-min: Minimum test coverage threshold (default: 80%)

--performance-budget: Performance requirements (e.g., <200ms response time)

--rollout-percentage: Initial rollout percentage for gradual deployment (default: 5%)

--feature-flag-service: Feature flag provider (launchdarkly|split|unleash|custom)

--analytics-platform: Analytics integration (segment|amplitude|mixpanel|custom)

--monitoring-stack: Observability tools (datadog|newrelic|grafana|custom)

Success Criteria

All acceptance criteria from business requirements are met

Test coverage exceeds minimum threshold (80% default)

Security scan shows no critical vulnerabilities

Performance meets defined budgets and SLOs

Feature flags configured for controlled rollout

Monitoring and alerting fully operational

Documentation complete and approved

Successful deployment to production with rollback capability

Product analytics tracking feature usage

A/B test metrics configured (if applicable)

Rollback Strategy

If issues arise during or after deployment:

Immediate feature flag disable (< 1 minute)

Blue-green traffic switch (< 5 minutes)

Full deployment rollback via CI/CD (< 15 minutes)

Database migration rollback if needed (coordinate with data team)

Incident post-mortem and fixes before re-deployment

Feature description: $ARGUMENTS