build-backend

build-backend is a skill for Codex from Phelan164/codex-howto. It costs 62 tokens per session (306 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

Guidance for building or changing server-side software, including APIs, services, background jobs, databases, and outside-system integrations.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it for backend features, database changes, background processing, integrations, and server-side defects or refactors.
Why use it?
It helps preserve API contracts, permissions, data correctness, safe failure handling, and consistent behaviour when backend code changes.

Skill for Codex

Written for Codex: agents/openai.yaml present.

Good fit Use it for backend features, database changes, background processing, integrations, and server-side defects or refactors.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/phelan164/codex-howto/build-backend
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.

Any agent
npx skills add Phelan164/codex-howto --skill build-backend
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Phelan164/codex-howto

Made for: Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for build-backend

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/phelan164/codex-howto/build-backend.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/phelan164/codex-howto/build-backend)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/phelan164/codex-howto/build-backend"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/phelan164/codex-howto/build-backend.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 62 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 306 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original 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 5.1 $0.00062 $0.00306
Opus 5 $0.00031 $0.00153
Sonnet 5 $0.00012 $0.00061
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00031

Measured 8d ago against content hash ada1a71cf76d, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

build-backend scanned grade A with 0 findings 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 8d ago.

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.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/build-backend/SKILL.md · 33 lines

What it actually says

Build Backend

Domain contract

  • Trace changed behavior from input through validation, authorization, domain logic, persistence, side effects, and response mapping.
  • Preserve published contracts unless the request explicitly changes them.
  • Enforce authorization at a trustworthy server-side boundary.
  • Validate untrusted input before domain or persistence operations.
  • Keep multi-write operations atomic where partial state would violate invariants.
  • Design external calls for timeouts, retries, idempotency, and duplicate delivery where applicable.
  • Do not query or mutate production data without explicit authorization.
  • Do not fabricate migration, framework, or API behavior; verify version-sensitive details.
  • Avoid broad service abstractions that are used once.

Execute and verify

Read references/contracts-and-data.md when the task changes a public API, schema, transaction, job, or integration.

Implement the smallest change at the owning layer. Cover success, invalid input, authorization, and material failure paths. Prefer:

reproducing/focused test → contract/integration test → type/lint → build

For migrations, validate forward behavior and document rollback or roll-forward strategy.

Files

What ships with it

2 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

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. 8d ago First seen · 33 lines · 62 tokens per session scan A ada1a71cf76d

Subscribe to this mod's changes

build-backend is a skill published in the GitHub repository Phelan164/codex-howto (3 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 62 tokens to every session and 306 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.