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name: migration-architect description: > Plans zero-downtime migrations with compatibility validation, rollback strategies, and phased execution plans. Use when migrating databases, APIs, infrastructure, or services between platforms or versions. license: MIT + Commons Clause metadata: version: 1.1.0 author: borghei category: engineering domain: infrastructure tier: POWERFUL updated: 2026-06-17

Migration Architect

Generates phased migration plans with risk assessment, compatibility analysis, and rollback runbooks for database, service, infrastructure, and API migrations. Validates schema compatibility, detects breaking changes, and produces rollback procedures with trigger conditions and communication templates.

Core Capabilities

• Phased planning — generate risk-assessed, multi-phase migration plans with validation gates, timelines, and stakeholder structures from a JSON spec.
• Compatibility analysis — diff before/after database or REST/JSON schemas to detect breaking changes, type mismatches, and constraint violations, with migration + rollback scripts.
• Rollback runbooks — phase-by-phase reversal steps, automated trigger conditions, data-recovery plans, escalation matrices, and communication templates.
• Pattern catalog — Expand-Contract, Dual-Write, CDC, Strangler Fig, Parallel Run, Canary, Blue-Green.
• Risk frameworks — technical, business, operational, and compliance risk categories.

When to Use

• Migrating databases, APIs, infrastructure, or services between platforms or versions.
• Validating schema/API compatibility and detecting breaking changes before cutover.
• Building rollback runbooks and zero-downtime execution plans.

Clarify First

Before planning the migration, confirm these inputs. If any is unknown or vague, ASK — do not assume:

• What's migrating — database, API, infrastructure, or service (sets --type and which pattern catalog applies)
• Deliverable — phased plan, compatibility diff, or rollback runbook (selects migration_planner.py vs compatibility_checker.py vs rollback_generator.py)
• Downtime budget & pattern — zero-downtime requirement and which pattern (expand-contract, dual-write, strangler fig, blue-green) (drives the phases and cutover technique)

Stop rule: ask only the 2-3 that most change the output. If the user says "just draft it," proceed and list your assumptions at the top of the artifact.

Tools

Tool	Purpose	Command
migration_planner.py	Generate a phased migration plan with risk assessment	python scripts/migration_planner.py --input spec.json --output plan.json --format both
compatibility_checker.py	Diff schemas/APIs and flag breaking changes	python scripts/compatibility_checker.py --before v1.json --after v2.json --type database
rollback_generator.py	Generate a rollback runbook from a plan	python scripts/rollback_generator.py --input plan.json --output runbook.json --format both

References

Load the reference that matches the task — keep this file lean and pull detail on demand:

• references/workflows-patterns-and-quality.md — quick-start commands, the three core workflows with validation checkpoints, the migration-pattern catalog table, anti-patterns, troubleshooting, and success criteria. Read when planning a migration.
• references/tool-reference.md — full per-tool purpose, usage, flag tables, input formats, and output structures for all three scripts. Read before running or debugging the scripts.
• references/migration_patterns_catalog.md — deep catalog of migration patterns with mechanics and trade-offs. Read when choosing a pattern.
• references/zero_downtime_techniques.md — techniques for cutover without downtime (expand-contract, dual-write, traffic shifting). Read when downtime budget is near zero.
• references/data_reconciliation_strategies.md — checksum/business-logic validation strategies to confirm data integrity post-migration. Read when verifying migrated data.

Scope & Limitations

This skill covers:

• End-to-end migration planning for databases, services, infrastructure, and APIs with phased execution and validation gates.
• Automated compatibility analysis between schema versions (SQL and REST/JSON) including breaking-change detection and migration script generation.
• Rollback runbook generation with trigger conditions, data recovery plans, escalation matrices, and communication templates.
• Risk assessment frameworks covering technical, business, operational, and compliance risk categories.

This skill does NOT cover:

• Actual execution of migrations against live systems -- the tools generate plans, reports, and scripts but do not connect to databases or cloud APIs.
• Application-level code refactoring required to support new schemas or APIs; see engineering/api-design-reviewer for API contract changes and engineering/database-designer for schema design.
• Real-time monitoring, alerting, or dashboard provisioning during migration execution; see engineering/observability-designer for observability setup.
• Cloud cost optimization or capacity planning for target infrastructure; see engineering/ci-cd-pipeline-builder for deployment pipeline configuration.

Integration Points

Skill	Integration	Data Flow
engineering/database-designer	Design target schema before migration planning	Target schema JSON feeds into compatibility_checker.py --after
engineering/api-design-reviewer	Validate API contract changes for service migrations	OpenAPI spec diffs feed into compatibility_checker.py --type api
engineering/observability-designer	Set up monitoring dashboards referenced in migration runbooks	Migration plan success metrics inform alerting rule definitions
engineering/ci-cd-pipeline-builder	Embed migration validation in CI/CD stages	compatibility_checker.py runs as a pipeline stage; migration_planner.py --validate gates deployments
engineering/runbook-generator	Extend rollback runbooks with operational procedures	rollback_generator.py output serves as input for detailed operational runbooks
engineering/release-manager	Coordinate migration cutover with release schedules	Migration plan phases and timelines align with release windows and feature-flag rollout stages