MCPInstall

system-design

Scalability, availability, and distributed systems design

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Install

Works with every agent the skills CLI supports.

npx skills add https://github.com/miles990/claude-software-skills --skill system-design
  1. 01

    Install

    Run the command in your project. The CLI asks which agents to install for.

  2. 02

    Describe the task

    Ask your agent for something this skill covers. It loads system-design automatically when relevant.

  3. 03

    Review the result

    The agent follows the SKILL.md steps, scripts and references bundled with the skill.

SKILL.md

The instructions your agent reads when the skill is triggered.

System Design

Overview

Principles for designing systems that handle scale, remain available, and perform well under load.


Scalability Fundamentals

Vertical vs Horizontal Scaling

Vertical Scaling (Scale Up):
┌─────────────────────┐
│  Bigger Server      │
│  - More CPU         │
│  - More RAM         │
│  - Faster disk      │
└─────────────────────┘
Limit: Hardware ceiling

Horizontal Scaling (Scale Out):
┌──────┐ ┌──────┐ ┌──────┐ ┌──────┐
│Server│ │Server│ │Server│ │Server│
└──────┘ └──────┘ └──────┘ └──────┘
         ↑
    Load Balancer
Limit: Coordination complexity

Stateless Services

// ❌ Stateful - stores session in memory
class BadService {
  private sessions = new Map();

  login(userId: string) {
    this.sessions.set(userId, { loggedIn: true });
  }
}

// ✅ Stateless - external session store
class GoodService {
  constructor(private sessionStore: Redis) {}

  async login(userId: string) {
    await this.sessionStore.set(`session:${userId}`, { loggedIn: true });
  }
}

Load Balancing

Strategies

StrategyDescriptionUse Case
Round RobinCycle through serversEqual capacity servers
Weighted RRBased on server capacityMixed capacity
Least ConnectionsRoute to least busyLong-lived connections
IP HashSame IP → same serverSession stickiness
URL HashSame URL → same serverCache optimization

Health Checks

# Kubernetes-style health checks
livenessProbe:
  httpGet:
    path: /health/live
    port: 8080
  initialDelaySeconds: 3
  periodSeconds: 10

readinessProbe:
  httpGet:
    path: /health/ready
    port: 8080
  initialDelaySeconds: 5
  periodSeconds: 5
// Health check endpoints
app.get('/health/live', (req, res) => {
  // Am I running?
  res.status(200).json({ status: 'alive' });
});

app.get('/health/ready', async (req, res) => {
  // Can I serve traffic?
  const dbOk = await checkDatabase();
  const cacheOk = await checkCache();

  if (dbOk && cacheOk) {
    res.status(200).json({ status: 'ready' });
  } else {
    res.status(503).json({ status: 'not ready', db: dbOk, cache: cacheOk });
  }
});

Caching Strategies

Cache Patterns

Cache-Aside (Lazy Loading):
┌────────┐    miss     ┌────────┐
│  App   │ ──────────→ │  Cache │
│        │ ←────────── │        │
└────────┘    null     └────────┘
    │
    │  read
    ↓
┌────────┐
│   DB   │  ──── write ──→ Cache
└────────┘

Write-Through:
App → Cache → DB (synchronous)

Write-Behind (Write-Back):
App → Cache → (async) → DB
// Cache-aside implementation
class CachedUserService {
  constructor(
    private cache: Redis,
    private db: Database
  ) {}

  async getUser(id: string): Promise<User> {
    // Try cache first
    const cached = await this.cache.get(`user:${id}`);
    if (cached) return JSON.parse(cached);

    // Cache miss - read from DB
    const user = await this.db.users.findById(id);
    if (user) {
      // Store in cache with TTL
      await this.cache.set(`user:${id}`, JSON.stringify(user), 'EX', 3600);
    }
    return user;
  }

  async updateUser(id: string, data: Partial<User>): Promise<User> {
    const user = await this.db.users.update(id, data);
    // Invalidate cache
    await this.cache.del(`user:${id}`);
    return user;
  }
}

Cache Invalidation

StrategyDescriptionComplexity
TTLExpire after timeSimple
Event-basedInvalidate on writeMedium
Version-basedKey includes versionMedium
Tag-basedGroup related keysComplex

Database Scaling

Read Replicas

                    ┌─────────────────┐
     Writes ──────→ │   Primary DB    │
                    └────────┬────────┘
                             │ replication
           ┌─────────────────┼─────────────────┐
           ↓                 ↓                 ↓
    ┌──────────┐      ┌──────────┐      ┌──────────┐
    │ Replica 1│      │ Replica 2│      │ Replica 3│
    └──────────┘      └──────────┘      └──────────┘
           ↑                 ↑                 ↑
           └─────── Reads ───┴────────────────┘

Sharding (Partitioning)

// Hash-based sharding
function getShard(userId: string, numShards: number): number {
  const hash = crypto.createHash('md5').update(userId).digest('hex');
  return parseInt(hash.slice(0, 8), 16) % numShards;
}

// Range-based sharding
function getShardByDate(date: Date): string {
  const year = date.getFullYear();
  const month = date.getMonth() + 1;
  return `orders_${year}_${month.toString().padStart(2, '0')}`;
}

// Consistent hashing for dynamic shards
class ConsistentHash {
  private ring: Map<number, string> = new Map();

  addNode(node: string) {
    for (let i = 0; i < 150; i++) { // Virtual nodes
      const hash = this.hash(`${node}:${i}`);
      this.ring.set(hash, node);
    }
  }

  getNode(key: string): string {
    const hash = this.hash(key);
    // Find next node on ring
    for (const [nodeHash, node] of [...this.ring.entries()].sort()) {
      if (nodeHash >= hash) return node;
    }
    return this.ring.values().next().value;
  }
}

Message Queues

Patterns

Point-to-Point:
Producer → Queue → Consumer

Pub/Sub:
              ┌─→ Subscriber 1
Publisher → Topic ─→ Subscriber 2
              └─→ Subscriber 3

Work Queue:
              ┌─→ Worker 1
Producer → Queue ─→ Worker 2  (competing consumers)
              └─→ Worker 3

Delivery Guarantees

GuaranteeDescriptionImplementation
At-most-onceMay lose messagesFire and forget
At-least-onceMay duplicateAck after process
Exactly-onceNo loss, no dupeIdempotency + dedup
// Idempotent processing
async function processOrder(event: OrderEvent) {
  // Check if already processed
  const processed = await redis.get(`processed:${event.id}`);
  if (processed) {
    console.log(`Already processed ${event.id}`);
    return;
  }

  // Process the order
  await db.orders.create(event.order);

  // Mark as processed (with TTL for cleanup)
  await redis.set(`processed:${event.id}`, '1', 'EX', 86400 * 7);
}

High Availability

Redundancy Patterns

Active-Active:
┌────────┐     ┌────────┐
│Server A│ ←─→ │Server B│  Both handle traffic
└────────┘     └────────┘

Active-Passive:
┌────────┐     ┌────────┐
│ Active │ ──→ │Standby │  Failover on failure
└────────┘     └────────┘

Circuit Breaker

class CircuitBreaker {
  private failures = 0;
  private lastFailure: Date | null = null;
  private state: 'closed' | 'open' | 'half-open' = 'closed';

  constructor(
    private threshold: number = 5,
    private timeout: number = 30000
  ) {}

  async execute<T>(fn: () => Promise<T>): Promise<T> {
    if (this.state === 'open') {
      if (Date.now() - this.lastFailure!.getTime() > this.timeout) {
        this.state = 'half-open';
      } else {
        throw new Error('Circuit is open');
      }
    }

    try {
      const result = await fn();
      this.onSuccess();
      return result;
    } catch (error) {
      this.onFailure();
      throw error;
    }
  }

  private onSuccess() {
    this.failures = 0;
    this.state = 'closed';
  }

  private onFailure() {
    this.failures++;
    this.lastFailure = new Date();
    if (this.failures >= this.threshold) {
      this.state = 'open';
    }
  }
}

CAP Theorem

         Consistency
            /\
           /  \
          /    \
         /      \
        /   CA   \
       /──────────\
      /            \
     / CP        AP \
    /________________\
Partition          Availability
Tolerance

CA: Single node (RDBMS)
CP: MongoDB, HBase (may reject writes during partition)
AP: Cassandra, DynamoDB (eventual consistency)

Consistency Models

ModelDescriptionExample
StrongRead sees latest writeRDBMS
EventualEventually consistentDNS, Cassandra
CausalRespects causalityChat apps
Read-your-writesSee your own writesSocial feeds

Rate Limiting

Algorithms

// Token Bucket
class TokenBucket {
  private tokens: number;
  private lastRefill: number;

  constructor(
    private capacity: number,
    private refillRate: number // tokens per second
  ) {
    this.tokens = capacity;
    this.lastRefill = Date.now();
  }

  consume(tokens: number = 1): boolean {
    this.refill();
    if (this.tokens >= tokens) {
      this.tokens -= tokens;
      return true;
    }
    return false;
  }

  private refill() {
    const now = Date.now();
    const elapsed = (now - this.lastRefill) / 1000;
    this.tokens = Math.min(
      this.capacity,
      this.tokens + elapsed * this.refillRate
    );
    this.lastRefill = now;
  }
}

// Sliding Window
class SlidingWindowRateLimiter {
  constructor(
    private redis: Redis,
    private limit: number,
    private window: number // seconds
  ) {}

  async isAllowed(key: string): Promise<boolean> {
    const now = Date.now();
    const windowStart = now - this.window * 1000;

    const pipe = this.redis.pipeline();
    pipe.zremrangebyscore(key, 0, windowStart);
    pipe.zadd(key, now, `${now}`);
    pipe.zcard(key);
    pipe.expire(key, this.window);

    const results = await pipe.exec();
    const count = results[2][1] as number;

    return count <= this.limit;
  }
}

Common System Designs

SystemKey Components
URL ShortenerHash function, Redis cache, DB
Twitter FeedFan-out, Redis timeline, Kafka
Chat AppWebSocket, Presence, Message queue
E-commerceCart service, Inventory, Payment
Video StreamingCDN, Chunking, Adaptive bitrate

Related Skills

  • [[architecture-patterns]] - Microservices, event-driven
  • [[database]] - Database optimization
  • [[caching-implementation]] - Cache strategies
  • [[reliability-engineering]] - SRE practices

FAQ

What does the system-design skill do?

Scalability, availability, and distributed systems design

How do I install system-design?

Run npx skills add https://github.com/miles990/claude-software-skills --skill system-design in your project. The skills CLI detects the agents you use and copies the skill into the right folder. For Claude Code you can also place the skill folder at ~/.claude/skills/system-design/ (personal) or .claude/skills/system-design/ (project).

Which AI agents can use system-design?

Any agent that supports the open Agent Skills format (a folder with a SKILL.md file), including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, Cline, OpenCode and more.

Is system-design safe to install?

No partner security audit is available yet. Skills can run commands and scripts, so read the SKILL.md and any bundled files before installing.

Who maintains system-design?

It is published by miles990 in miles990/claude-software-skills. It has 76 recorded installs.

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