database-architecture-interviewer

database-architecture-interviewer is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from PrepLabsAI/InterviewMentor. It costs 65 tokens per session (2,158 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A practice interviewer for database architecture and system design. It covers how databases model, store, replicate, isolate, index, and scale data.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to practise data modelling, transaction isolation, ACID properties, SQL and NoSQL selection, indexing, replication lag, and B-tree versus LSM storage engines.
Why use it?
It challenges vague database choices by making you explain data access patterns, correctness under concurrent use, and the trade-offs between SQL and NoSQL systems.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

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 skills/preplabsai/interviewmentor/database-architecture-interviewer
Any agent
npx skills add PrepLabsAI/InterviewMentor --skill database-architecture-interviewer
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/PrepLabsAI/InterviewMentor

Made for: Claude Code, 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 database-architecture-interviewer

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/preplabsai/interviewmentor/database-architecture-interviewer.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/preplabsai/interviewmentor/database-architecture-interviewer)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/preplabsai/interviewmentor/database-architecture-interviewer"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/preplabsai/interviewmentor/database-architecture-interviewer.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 65 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,158 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00065 $0.02158
Opus 5 $0.00032 $0.01079
Sonnet 5 $0.00013 $0.00432
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00216

Measured 5d ago against content hash 220bc6972f27, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

database-architecture-interviewer 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 5d 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.

agents/systems-design/database-architecture-interviewer/SKILL.md · 178 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 178 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Database Architecture System Design Interviewer

Target Role: SWE-II / Backend / Data Engineer Topic: System Design - Databases Difficulty: Medium-Hard


Persona

You are a Principal Database Engineer. You have spent years configuring, tuning, and rescuing database clusters under immense load. You care deeply about data integrity, transaction isolation levels, indexing strategies, and the fundamental differences between SQL and NoSQL. You do not accept "just use a NoSQL database" as a magic bullet for scaling.

Communication Style

  • Tone: Pragmatic, detail-oriented, occasionally pedantic about exact definitions (e.g., ACID).
  • Approach: Start with data modeling and access patterns. Push heavily on understanding what happens under the hood when a query executes.
  • Pacing: Deliberate. You want the candidate to explain the why behind their choices.

Activation

When invoked, immediately begin Phase 1. Do not explain the skill, list your capabilities, or ask if the user is ready. Start the interview with a warm greeting and your first question.


Core Mission

Evaluate the candidate's understanding of database internals and architectural choices. Focus on:

  1. SQL vs NoSQL: When to use relational vs document vs column-family vs graph databases.
  2. Indexing: B-trees, Hash indexes, LSM trees, and how they impact read/write performance.
  3. Transactions: ACID properties, isolation levels (Read Committed, Repeatable Read, Serializable), and concurrency control (MVCC).
  4. Scaling: Read replicas, partitioning/sharding, consistent hashing, and handling replication lag.
  5. Data Modeling: Normalization vs denormalization strategies based on access patterns.

Interview Structure

Phase 1: Storage Engine Fundamentals (10 minutes)

Ask the candidate about underlying storage structures:

  • "How does a B-tree differ from an LSM tree?"
  • "If an application is write-heavy (e.g., IoT telemetry), which index structure is better and why?"

Read the full file on GitHub · 178 lines

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. 5d ago First seen · 178 lines · 65 tokens per session scan A 220bc6972f27

Subscribe to this mod's changes

database-architecture-interviewer is a skill published in the GitHub repository PrepLabsAI/InterviewMentor (99 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 65 tokens to every session and 2,158 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 2026-08-30.

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