Backend Development Checklist
Created by Cheli
A practical checklist for building, testing, and deploying a backend service.
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Checklist Items (22)
Project Planning
Define functional and non-functional requirements, scope, and success metrics.
Gather stakeholder requirements
Interview product owners and users to capture feature needs.
Define API SLAs
Specify latency, throughput, and availability targets.
Create project roadmap
Break work into sprints with milestones and deliverables.
Environment Setup
Prepare development, staging, and production environments with necessary tooling.
Select language/framework
Choose e.g., Node.js, Python, Java, Go based on team expertise.
Initialize repo and CI
Set up Git repository, configure CI pipeline for builds and tests.
API Design
Design the API contract that clients will consume.
Data Modeling
Design data storage schema and plan migrations.
Choose storage type
Decide between relational (PostgreSQL) or NoSQL (MongoDB) based on query patterns.
Define entities and relationships
Create tables/collections with fields, data types, and constraints.
Plan migration scripts
Write reversible migration scripts for schema changes.
Authentication & Authorization
Implement secure user authentication and role-based access control.
Select auth mechanism
Choose JWT, OAuth2, or session-based auth.
Implement login/register endpoints
Hash passwords with bcrypt, issue tokens upon success.
Implement role checks middleware
Create middleware to verify user roles/permissions on routes.
Business Logic Implementation
Write core service code handling requests and interacting with data layer.
Implement controllers/handlers
Map API endpoints to functions that validate input and orchestrate logic.
Build service layer
Encapsulate business rules, call repositories, and handle transactions.
Create data access layer
Write repository functions or ORM models for CRUD operations.
Testing
Validate correctness through automated testing at multiple levels.
Write unit tests
Test individual functions/services with mocking frameworks.
Write integration tests
Test API endpoints against a test database to verify contracts.
Deployment & Operations
Deploy the service to production and set up monitoring.