AI Prompts for Software Engineers

"Generate a comprehensive template for an Engineering Request for Comments (RFC) / Technical Design Document for introducing a new microservice to process background image uploads. Include sections for: Context & Goals, Proposed Architecture (with system components and boundaries), API Design, Database Schema modifications, Security & Permissions, Monitoring & Alerting plan, Deployment strategy, and "Alternatives Considered" to show why this approach is best."

"Provide a rigorous, 10-point code review checklist specifically for reviewing React/TypeScript pull requests in a large monorepo. Cover areas checking for: prop-drilling, unnecessary re-renders (hooks usage like useCallback/useMemo), strict TypeScript typing (avoiding "any"), accessibility (a11y) violations, test coverage for edge cases, and proper handling of asynchronous loading and error states."

"Analyze a hypothetical scenario where a PostgreSQL query joining 4 tables (Users, Orders, Products, Reviews) and filtering by date range is causing a bottleneck (taking 4+ seconds). Assume there are millions of rows. List 5 specific strategies to optimize this, such as: creating composite indexes on specific filter columns, analyzing EXPLAIN ANALYZE outputs for Seq Scans, denormalizing the schema or creating materialized views, and applying pagination."

"Explain the "Conventional Commits" standard (Semantic Commit messages) to a junior engineer. Provide 5 distinct examples of properly formatted commit messages covering different scenarios: a minor bug fix in a UI component, a major breaking change updating an API route, adding a new feature, a documentation update, and refactoring a utility function. Explain how this ties into semantic versioning (SemVer) and automated changelog generation."

"Outline the high-level system architecture for a real-time messaging application (similar to Slack) designed to handle 100,000 concurrent connections. Discuss the separation of the stateless API servers from the stateful WebSocket connections. Suggest the appropriate tools for connection management (e.g., Redis Pub/Sub), message persistence (e.g., Cassandra or DynamoDB), and how to handle push notifications when the user is disconnected."

"Create a template for a "Blameless Post-Mortem" report following a 45-minute production database outage. Include sections for: Executive Summary, Impact Assessment (users affected, revenue lost), Detailed Timeline of Events (from detection to resolution), Root Cause Analysis using the "5 Whys" methodology, and Action Items (preventative measures). Emphasize language that focuses on system failures rather than human blame."

"Brainstorm 8 thorough unit test cases (happy path, edge cases, and unhappy paths) for a function called `calculateCartTotal()`. The function takes an array of item objects (price, quantity), a discount code string (which can be fixed amount, percentage, or invalid), and a boolean for "express_shipping". Consider edge cases like negative quantities, floating-point math errors (0.1 + 0.2), empty carts, and applying discounts greater than the cart subtotal."

"Define the ideal 5-stage GitHub Actions CI/CD pipeline for a Node.js API application deploying to AWS ECS. Describe the checks occurring at each stage: 1) Linting/Formatting, 2) Unit & Integration Testing, 3) Security/Vulnerability Scanning (SAST), 4) Building/Tagging the Docker Image, and 5) Deployment (using Blue/Green). Explain why testing must block the build stage from executing."

"Draft a strategy document for migrating external enterprise clients from a legacy REST API (v1) to a new GraphQL or overhauled REST API (v2) with zero downtime. Cover the timeline, how to handle sunsetting v1 (deprecation headers, documentation, reaching out to high-volume consumers), establishing a parallel running phase, and how to verify data consistency between the two versions before shutting v1 down entirely."

"Draft the outline of a "Developer Onboarding README" for a complex monorepo using Next.js and Go. Include sections for: Prerequisites (Node, Docker, Go versions), Local Environment Setup (cloning, env vars setup, running db migrations), commands to spin up the local dev server, how to run tests, and links to the Architecture Docs and Coding Standards. The goal is to get a new engineer to their first commit on Day 1."