System Design Review Prompts: 28 Architecture Decisions

28 prompts for API, database, microservices, and code reviews. Staff engineers critique designs faster with domain-specific decision frameworks.

Staff and principal engineers at mid-stage startups spend hours reviewing architectural proposals but generic "review this architecture" prompts produce vague affirmations rather than real critique. This pack contains 28 parameterized prompts across five domains—REST/GraphQL/gRPC API design, OLTP-to-cloud database assessment, monolith-to-microservices evaluation, security and performance code review, and tech debt prioritization—each designed to surface the weak spots, trade-offs, and failure modes that generic AI review misses. Each variant targets a distinct architectural decision context that mid-career engineers face. The prompts use role constraints (you are a senior infrastructure engineer), specific criteria (shared database anti-patterns, write amplification limits), and stress-testing patterns that force justification of design choices until reasoning either holds or cracks. Built from consulting patterns observed in fintech, SaaS, and legacy modernization teams. All five variants share the same outline structure; deltas specify the domain-specific terminology, reference architectures, and failure scenarios unique to each context. Delivered as a single PDF with variant chapters plus a JSON ChatGPT import file for quick setup.

Who this is for

Staff and principal engineers at mid-stage startups making go/no-go decisions on API contracts, database migrations, microservices splits, and tech debt prioritization.

Who this is NOT for

Not for junior developers, not for generic 'debug my code' use, not for visual architecture diagramming tools, not for real-time code generation or pair-programming assistants. Requires architectural knowledge to contextualize results.

140 copy-paste prompts across 5 variants.