backend-author

A software agent for building and changing backend code, meaning the server-side part of an application. It follows test-driven development (TDD), writing a failing test before implementation, and handles input checks, framework conventions, and database access through an ORM.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when writing or modifying backend or server-side code. It reads the project’s technology choices from .codearbiter/tech-stack.md and requires failing tests before implementation.
Why use it?
It gives backend changes a consistent process for testing, validating user input, and using the project’s framework and database layer. This helps catch server-side errors before implementation is considered complete.

Agent

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add agents/arbiterforge/codearbiter/backend-author
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/arbiterForge/codeArbiter
Per session 55 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 787 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. Scan, not verified.
Origin unknown No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00055 $0.00787
Opus 5 $0.00028 $0.00394
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00157
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00079

Measured yesterday against content hash 89d3da668d73, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

backend-author scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Runs shell commandslowCapability

Expected in a hook, worth knowing in a rule or an instructions file.

- No `child_process.exec()` or equivalent with `shell: true`
core/surface/agents/backend-author.md · 61 lines

The source is not reproduced here

Licensed AGPL-3.0

The repository is licensed AGPL-3.0, which this catalogue does not treat as permission to reproduce the file. Read it at the source.

Read it on GitHub

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 61 lines · 55 tokens per session scan A 89d3da668d73

Subscribe to this mod's changes

backend-author is an agent published in the GitHub repository arbiterForge/codeArbiter (141 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed AGPL-3.0. It adds 55 tokens to every session and 787 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (runs shell commands). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.