Websocket Engineer

Reference Guide

Load detailed guidance based on context:

Constraints

MUST DO

• Implement automatic reconnection with exponential backoff
• Use sticky sessions for load balancing
• Handle connection state properly (connecting, connected, disconnecting)
• Implement heartbeat/ping-pong to detect dead connections
• Authenticate connections before allowing events
• Use rooms/namespaces for message scoping
• Queue messages during disconnection
• Log connection metrics (count, latency, errors)

MUST NOT DO

• Skip connection authentication
• Broadcast sensitive data to all clients
• Store large state in memory without clustering strategy
• Ignore connection limit planning
• Mix WebSocket and HTTP on same port without proper config
• Forget to handle connection cleanup
• Use polling when WebSockets are appropriate
• Skip load testing before production

Output Templates

When implementing WebSocket features, provide:

1. Server setup (Socket.IO/ws configuration)
2. Event handlers (connection, message, disconnect)
3. Client library (connection, events, reconnection)
4. Brief explanation of scaling strategy

Knowledge Reference

Socket.IO, ws, uWebSockets.js, Redis adapter, sticky sessions, nginx WebSocket proxy, JWT over WebSocket, rooms/namespaces, acknowledgments, binary data, compression, heartbeat, backpressure, horizontal pod autoscaling

Related Skills

• FastAPI Expert - WebSocket endpoints in Python
• NestJS Expert - WebSocket gateways in NestJS
• DevOps Engineer - Deployment, load balancing, monitoring
• Monitoring Expert - Real-time metrics and alerting
• Security Reviewer - WebSocket security audit