# Network Programming and Protocols - Skills and Agents Backlog

This document identifies specialized skills and agents (subagents) that could enhance the Network Programming processes beyond general-purpose capabilities. These tools would provide domain-specific expertise, automation capabilities, and integration with specialized tooling.

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## Table of Contents

1. [Overview](#overview)
2. [Skills Backlog](#skills-backlog)
3. [Agents Backlog](#agents-backlog)
4. [Process-to-Skill/Agent Mapping](#process-to-skillagent-mapping)
5. [Shared Candidates](#shared-candidates)
6. [Implementation Priority](#implementation-priority)

---

## Overview

### Current State
All 30 implemented processes in this specialization currently use the `general-purpose` agent for task execution. While functional, this approach lacks domain-specific optimizations that specialized skills and agents could provide.

### Goals
- Provide deep expertise in specific networking tools, protocols, and libraries
- Enable automated validation and quality gates with real network testing
- Reduce context-switching overhead for protocol-specific tasks
- Improve accuracy and efficiency of network programming operations

---

## Skills Backlog

### SK-001: Socket Programming Skill
**Slug**: `socket-programming`
**Category**: Low-Level Networking

**Description**: Deep integration with socket APIs for TCP/UDP programming across platforms.

**Capabilities**:
- Execute socket operations and interpret errors
- Analyze socket options and buffer configurations
- Debug connection states (ESTABLISHED, TIME_WAIT, CLOSE_WAIT)
- Generate optimized socket code for different I/O models
- Interpret netstat/ss output for socket analysis
- Configure non-blocking I/O and event handling
- Handle platform differences (BSD sockets, Winsock)

**Process Integration**:
- tcp-socket-server.js
- udp-socket-server.js
- event-driven-socket-handler.js
- connection-pool.js

**Dependencies**: System socket APIs, netstat/ss tools

---

### SK-002: Protocol Parser Skill
**Slug**: `protocol-parser`
**Category**: Protocol Implementation

**Description**: Specialized skill for binary and text protocol parsing and serialization.

**Capabilities**:
- Design and validate protocol message formats
- Generate parser code from protocol specifications
- Implement state machine parsing
- Handle endianness and byte alignment
- Validate checksum/CRC implementations
- Debug protocol parsing issues
- Generate test vectors for parsers

**Process Integration**:
- binary-protocol-parser.js
- custom-protocol-design.js
- protocol-state-machine.js
- message-framing.js

**Dependencies**: Protocol Buffers, FlatBuffers, custom parser generators

---

### SK-003: Packet Capture Skill
**Slug**: `packet-capture`
**Category**: Network Analysis

**Description**: Expert skill for packet capture and analysis using libpcap/Wireshark.

**Capabilities**:
- Execute tcpdump/tshark commands and interpret output
- Write and validate BPF filter expressions
- Analyze pcap/pcapng files
- Decode protocol layers (Ethernet, IP, TCP, UDP, application)
- Calculate packet statistics and flow analysis
- Generate Wireshark dissectors
- Create custom capture filters

**Process Integration**:
- packet-capture-analysis.js
- protocol-dissector.js
- network-traffic-analyzer.js

**Dependencies**: libpcap/npcap, tcpdump, tshark, Wireshark

---

### SK-004: TLS/SSL Security Skill
**Slug**: `tls-security`
**Category**: Network Security

**Description**: Expert skill for TLS/SSL implementation and certificate management.

**Capabilities**:
- Generate and validate TLS configurations
- Create and manage X.509 certificates
- Analyze cipher suite security
- Debug TLS handshake failures
- Configure OpenSSL/BoringSSL/mbed TLS
- Implement certificate pinning
- Test for TLS vulnerabilities (SSLLabs-style analysis)
- Generate secure cipher suite configurations

**Process Integration**:
- tls-integration.js
- mtls-implementation.js
- certificate-management.js

**Dependencies**: OpenSSL CLI, certbot, ssl-config-generator

---

### SK-005: WebSocket Skill
**Slug**: `websocket`
**Category**: Real-Time Communication

**Description**: Specialized skill for WebSocket protocol implementation and testing.

**Capabilities**:
- Generate RFC 6455 compliant implementations
- Validate WebSocket handshake and framing
- Test with Autobahn Test Suite
- Implement permessage-deflate compression
- Debug WebSocket connection issues
- Generate subprotocol handlers
- Analyze WebSocket traffic

**Process Integration**:
- websocket-server.js
- websocket-client.js
- realtime-messaging-system.js

**Dependencies**: Autobahn Test Suite, wscat, websocat

---

### SK-006: HTTP Protocol Skill
**Slug**: `http-protocol`
**Category**: Web Protocols

**Description**: Deep HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, and HTTP/3 protocol expertise.

**Capabilities**:
- Validate HTTP compliance with RFCs
- Analyze HTTP/2 frame streams
- Debug HPACK header compression
- Generate HTTP/2 server configurations
- Analyze HTTP/3 and QUIC traffic
- Test HTTP performance characteristics
- Debug chunked encoding and keep-alive issues

**Process Integration**:
- http-server.js
- http2-server.js
- http-client-library.js
- rest-api-client-generator.js

**Dependencies**: curl, h2spec, nghttp2, quiche

---

### SK-007: gRPC Skill
**Slug**: `grpc-protocol`
**Category**: RPC Protocols

**Description**: Expert skill for gRPC protocol implementation and debugging.

**Capabilities**:
- Generate gRPC service definitions and stubs
- Debug gRPC streaming issues
- Analyze gRPC-web compatibility
- Configure gRPC load balancing
- Implement gRPC interceptors
- Test gRPC services with grpcurl
- Optimize gRPC performance

**Process Integration**:
- realtime-messaging-system.js (gRPC streaming)
- custom-protocol-design.js (gRPC-based)
- layer7-load-balancer.js (gRPC routing)

**Dependencies**: protoc, grpcurl, grpc-web

---

### SK-008: Load Balancer Skill
**Slug**: `load-balancer`
**Category**: Traffic Management

**Description**: Expert skill for load balancer configuration and algorithms.

**Capabilities**:
- Configure HAProxy/NGINX load balancing
- Implement load balancing algorithms
- Design health check strategies
- Configure session persistence
- Analyze load distribution
- Debug load balancer issues
- Optimize for high availability

**Process Integration**:
- layer4-load-balancer.js
- layer7-load-balancer.js
- health-check-system.js

**Dependencies**: HAProxy, NGINX, LVS/IPVS

---

### SK-009: DNS Skill
**Slug**: `dns-protocol`
**Category**: Name Resolution

**Description**: Expert skill for DNS protocol implementation and operations.

**Capabilities**:
- Execute dig/nslookup queries and interpret results
- Analyze DNS record types and TTLs
- Debug DNS resolution issues
- Configure DNS servers (BIND, CoreDNS)
- Implement DNSSEC validation
- Analyze DNS traffic patterns
- Design DNS-based service discovery

**Process Integration**:
- realtime-messaging-system.js (service discovery)
- layer7-load-balancer.js (DNS-based routing)
- http-proxy-server.js (DNS resolution)

**Dependencies**: dig, nslookup, BIND utilities

---

### SK-010: Network Testing Skill
**Slug**: `network-testing`
**Category**: Testing and Validation

**Description**: Comprehensive network testing and benchmarking skill.

**Capabilities**:
- Run iperf/netperf bandwidth tests
- Execute load testing with wrk/hey/k6
- Analyze latency with ping/mtr/traceroute
- Conduct protocol conformance testing
- Run chaos engineering network tests
- Generate network test reports
- Benchmark network performance

**Process Integration**:
- network-testing-framework.js
- load-testing-tool.js
- protocol-fuzzer.js

**Dependencies**: iperf3, netperf, wrk, k6, tc (traffic control)

---

### SK-011: Protocol Fuzzing Skill
**Slug**: `protocol-fuzzer`
**Category**: Security Testing

**Description**: Expert skill for protocol fuzzing and vulnerability discovery.

**Capabilities**:
- Configure AFL++, libFuzzer, boofuzz
- Generate mutation strategies
- Analyze crash reports and coverage
- Create protocol grammar definitions
- Detect crash patterns and vulnerabilities
- Generate reproducible test cases
- Report security vulnerabilities

**Process Integration**:
- protocol-fuzzer.js
- binary-protocol-parser.js
- network-testing-framework.js

**Dependencies**: AFL++, libFuzzer, boofuzz, Peach Fuzzer

---

### SK-012: Event Loop Skill
**Slug**: `event-loop`
**Category**: High-Performance I/O

**Description**: Expert skill for high-performance event-driven I/O programming.

**Capabilities**:
- Configure epoll/kqueue/IOCP
- Analyze event loop performance
- Debug event handling issues
- Generate libuv/Boost.Asio/Tokio code
- Optimize for C10K+ connections
- Profile event loop bottlenecks
- Implement io_uring operations

**Process Integration**:
- event-driven-socket-handler.js
- tcp-socket-server.js
- websocket-server.js
- layer4-load-balancer.js

**Dependencies**: strace, perf, libuv, io_uring

---

### SK-013: Proxy Server Skill
**Slug**: `proxy-server`
**Category**: Traffic Interception

**Description**: Expert skill for proxy server implementation and configuration.

**Capabilities**:
- Configure Squid/mitmproxy/Charles
- Implement HTTP CONNECT tunneling
- Configure SOCKS4/SOCKS5 proxies
- Implement transparent proxying with iptables
- Analyze proxy traffic
- Debug proxy connection issues
- Generate proxy PAC files

**Process Integration**:
- http-proxy-server.js
- socks5-proxy.js
- transparent-proxy.js

**Dependencies**: Squid, mitmproxy, iptables, nftables

---

### SK-014: Network Simulation Skill
**Slug**: `network-simulation`
**Category**: Testing Environment

**Description**: Skill for network condition simulation and emulation.

**Capabilities**:
- Configure tc (traffic control) for latency/loss
- Set up network namespaces for isolation
- Emulate WAN conditions with netem
- Create virtual network topologies
- Simulate packet loss and corruption
- Test under degraded network conditions
- Generate chaos engineering scenarios

**Process Integration**:
- network-testing-framework.js
- load-testing-tool.js
- protocol-fuzzer.js
- tcp-socket-server.js

**Dependencies**: tc, ip netns, mininet, toxiproxy

---

### SK-015: Serialization Skill
**Slug**: `serialization`
**Category**: Data Encoding

**Description**: Expert skill for binary and text serialization formats.

**Capabilities**:
- Generate Protocol Buffers schemas and code
- Implement MessagePack/CBOR encoding
- Analyze serialization performance
- Compare serialization formats
- Debug deserialization issues
- Optimize payload sizes
- Handle schema evolution

**Process Integration**:
- binary-protocol-parser.js
- custom-protocol-design.js
- message-framing.js
- websocket-server.js

**Dependencies**: protoc, flatc, msgpack tools

---

---

## Agents Backlog

### AG-001: Network Systems Architect Agent
**Slug**: `network-architect`
**Category**: Architecture

**Description**: Senior architect for network system design and protocol architecture.

**Expertise Areas**:
- Protocol design principles and patterns
- High-performance network architectures
- Scalability and reliability patterns
- Network security architecture
- API gateway and service mesh design
- Multi-region networking strategies

**Persona**:
- Role: Principal Network Systems Architect
- Experience: 10+ years network systems design
- Background: High-scale distributed systems, protocol design

**Process Integration**:
- tcp-socket-server.js (architecture design)
- custom-protocol-design.js (all phases)
- layer4-load-balancer.js (architecture)
- layer7-load-balancer.js (architecture)

---

### AG-002: Protocol Implementation Expert Agent
**Slug**: `protocol-expert`
**Category**: Protocol Development

**Description**: Expert agent for protocol implementation and RFC compliance.

**Expertise Areas**:
- RFC interpretation and compliance
- Protocol state machine design
- Binary protocol implementation
- Interoperability testing
- Protocol versioning strategies
- Backward compatibility

**Persona**:
- Role: Senior Protocol Engineer
- Experience: 8+ years protocol development
- Background: IETF standards work, protocol implementations

**Process Integration**:
- binary-protocol-parser.js (all phases)
- custom-protocol-design.js (design phases)
- protocol-state-machine.js (all phases)
- websocket-server.js (RFC compliance)

---

### AG-003: Network Security Expert Agent
**Slug**: `network-security-expert`
**Category**: Security

**Description**: Specialized agent for network security and cryptographic protocols.

**Expertise Areas**:
- TLS/SSL implementation and debugging
- Certificate management and PKI
- Network attack vectors and mitigations
- Cryptographic protocol analysis
- Secure protocol design
- Penetration testing for network services

**Persona**:
- Role: Senior Network Security Engineer
- Experience: 8+ years network security
- Background: Cryptography, penetration testing, security auditing

**Process Integration**:
- tls-integration.js (all phases)
- mtls-implementation.js (all phases)
- certificate-management.js (all phases)
- protocol-fuzzer.js (vulnerability analysis)

---

### AG-004: High-Performance Networking Agent
**Slug**: `hpc-network-expert`
**Category**: Performance

**Description**: Expert in high-performance, low-latency network programming.

**Expertise Areas**:
- C10K/C10M problem solutions
- Event-driven architecture (epoll, kqueue, IOCP)
- Zero-copy techniques
- DPDK and kernel bypass
- Lock-free data structures for networking
- Performance profiling and optimization

**Persona**:
- Role: High-Performance Systems Engineer
- Experience: 7+ years performance-critical systems
- Background: HFT systems, game servers, CDN infrastructure

**Process Integration**:
- event-driven-socket-handler.js (all phases)
- tcp-socket-server.js (performance optimization)
- layer4-load-balancer.js (performance)
- connection-pool.js (optimization)

---

### AG-005: Network Analysis Expert Agent
**Slug**: `network-analysis-expert`
**Category**: Analysis and Debugging

**Description**: Expert in network traffic analysis and debugging.

**Expertise Areas**:
- Packet capture and analysis
- Protocol dissection and reverse engineering
- Network troubleshooting methodologies
- Traffic pattern analysis
- Network forensics
- Performance bottleneck identification

**Persona**:
- Role: Senior Network Analyst
- Experience: 6+ years network analysis
- Background: NOC operations, incident response, Wireshark expertise

**Process Integration**:
- packet-capture-analysis.js (all phases)
- protocol-dissector.js (all phases)
- network-traffic-analyzer.js (all phases)
- network-testing-framework.js (analysis)

---

### AG-006: Load Balancer Expert Agent
**Slug**: `load-balancer-expert`
**Category**: Traffic Management

**Description**: Expert in load balancing, traffic management, and high availability.

**Expertise Areas**:
- Load balancing algorithms and strategies
- Health checking and failover
- Session persistence mechanisms
- Global server load balancing
- Service mesh traffic management
- CDN and edge computing

**Persona**:
- Role: Senior Traffic Engineering Lead
- Experience: 7+ years load balancing systems
- Background: Large-scale web infrastructure, CDN operations

**Process Integration**:
- layer4-load-balancer.js (all phases)
- layer7-load-balancer.js (all phases)
- health-check-system.js (all phases)
- http-proxy-server.js (reverse proxy)

---

### AG-007: WebSocket/Real-Time Expert Agent
**Slug**: `realtime-expert`
**Category**: Real-Time Communication

**Description**: Expert in WebSocket and real-time messaging systems.

**Expertise Areas**:
- WebSocket protocol internals
- Real-time messaging architectures
- Pub/sub system design
- Presence and typing indicators
- Message ordering and delivery guarantees
- Horizontal scaling for real-time systems

**Persona**:
- Role: Real-Time Systems Engineer
- Experience: 6+ years real-time applications
- Background: Chat systems, gaming, live collaboration

**Process Integration**:
- websocket-server.js (all phases)
- websocket-client.js (all phases)
- realtime-messaging-system.js (all phases)

---

### AG-008: Proxy/Tunneling Expert Agent
**Slug**: `proxy-expert`
**Category**: Traffic Interception

**Description**: Expert in proxy servers, tunneling, and traffic interception.

**Expertise Areas**:
- HTTP proxy architecture
- SOCKS protocol implementation
- TLS interception (bump-in-the-wire)
- NAT traversal techniques
- VPN and tunneling protocols
- Traffic filtering and inspection

**Persona**:
- Role: Proxy Systems Engineer
- Experience: 6+ years proxy/VPN systems
- Background: Enterprise proxy, security gateways

**Process Integration**:
- http-proxy-server.js (all phases)
- socks5-proxy.js (all phases)
- transparent-proxy.js (all phases)

---

### AG-009: Network Testing Expert Agent
**Slug**: `network-testing-expert`
**Category**: Testing and Quality

**Description**: Expert in network testing, benchmarking, and validation.

**Expertise Areas**:
- Network performance testing
- Protocol conformance testing
- Load and stress testing
- Chaos engineering for networks
- Network test automation
- Test result analysis

**Persona**:
- Role: Network QA Lead
- Experience: 6+ years network testing
- Background: QA automation, performance engineering

**Process Integration**:
- network-testing-framework.js (all phases)
- load-testing-tool.js (all phases)
- protocol-fuzzer.js (testing strategy)

---

### AG-010: Security Testing Agent
**Slug**: `security-testing-expert`
**Category**: Security Testing

**Description**: Expert in protocol fuzzing and network security testing.

**Expertise Areas**:
- Protocol fuzzing strategies
- Vulnerability discovery and analysis
- Crash triage and root cause analysis
- Coverage-guided fuzzing
- Security test automation
- Vulnerability reporting

**Persona**:
- Role: Security Researcher
- Experience: 5+ years security research
- Background: Bug bounty, vulnerability research, fuzzing

**Process Integration**:
- protocol-fuzzer.js (all phases)
- network-testing-framework.js (security testing)
- binary-protocol-parser.js (fuzz testing)

---

---

## Process-to-Skill/Agent Mapping

| Process File | Primary Skills | Primary Agents |
|-------------|---------------|----------------|
| tcp-socket-server.js | SK-001, SK-012, SK-014 | AG-001, AG-004 |
| udp-socket-server.js | SK-001, SK-014 | AG-001 |
| event-driven-socket-handler.js | SK-001, SK-012 | AG-004 |
| connection-pool.js | SK-001, SK-012 | AG-004 |
| binary-protocol-parser.js | SK-002, SK-015, SK-011 | AG-002, AG-010 |
| custom-protocol-design.js | SK-002, SK-015 | AG-001, AG-002 |
| protocol-state-machine.js | SK-002 | AG-002 |
| message-framing.js | SK-002, SK-015 | AG-002 |
| tls-integration.js | SK-004 | AG-003 |
| mtls-implementation.js | SK-004 | AG-003 |
| certificate-management.js | SK-004 | AG-003 |
| http-server.js | SK-006 | AG-001 |
| http2-server.js | SK-006 | AG-001, AG-004 |
| http-client-library.js | SK-006 | AG-001 |
| rest-api-client-generator.js | SK-006, SK-007 | AG-001 |
| websocket-server.js | SK-005, SK-012 | AG-007 |
| websocket-client.js | SK-005 | AG-007 |
| realtime-messaging-system.js | SK-005, SK-007, SK-009 | AG-007 |
| packet-capture-analysis.js | SK-003 | AG-005 |
| protocol-dissector.js | SK-003, SK-002 | AG-005 |
| network-traffic-analyzer.js | SK-003, SK-010 | AG-005 |
| layer4-load-balancer.js | SK-008, SK-001, SK-012 | AG-006, AG-004 |
| layer7-load-balancer.js | SK-008, SK-006 | AG-006 |
| health-check-system.js | SK-008, SK-010 | AG-006 |
| http-proxy-server.js | SK-013, SK-006 | AG-008 |
| socks5-proxy.js | SK-013, SK-001 | AG-008 |
| transparent-proxy.js | SK-013, SK-014 | AG-008 |
| network-testing-framework.js | SK-010, SK-014 | AG-009 |
| load-testing-tool.js | SK-010, SK-014 | AG-009 |
| protocol-fuzzer.js | SK-011, SK-002 | AG-010, AG-009 |

---

## Shared Candidates

These skills and agents are strong candidates for extraction to a shared library as they apply across multiple specializations.

### Shared Skills

| ID | Skill | Potential Shared Specializations |
|----|-------|----------------------------------|
| SK-004 | TLS/SSL Security | DevOps/SRE, Security Engineering, Web Development |
| SK-006 | HTTP Protocol | Web Development, API Development, DevOps/SRE |
| SK-007 | gRPC Protocol | Microservices, Backend Development |
| SK-010 | Network Testing | QA Testing, DevOps/SRE, Security Engineering |
| SK-014 | Network Simulation | DevOps/SRE, QA Testing, Chaos Engineering |
| SK-015 | Serialization | Backend Development, Data Engineering, API Development |

### Shared Agents

| ID | Agent | Potential Shared Specializations |
|----|-------|----------------------------------|
| AG-003 | Network Security Expert | Security Engineering, DevOps/SRE |
| AG-009 | Network Testing Expert | QA Testing, DevOps/SRE |
| AG-010 | Security Testing Agent | Security Engineering, QA Testing |

---

## Implementation Priority

### Phase 1: Critical Skills (High Impact)
1. **SK-001**: Socket Programming - Foundation for all socket-based processes
2. **SK-002**: Protocol Parser - Core for all protocol implementations
3. **SK-004**: TLS/SSL Security - Essential for secure communications
4. **SK-005**: WebSocket - High-demand real-time applications

### Phase 2: Critical Agents (High Impact)
1. **AG-001**: Network Systems Architect - Highest process coverage
2. **AG-002**: Protocol Implementation Expert - Core protocol expertise
3. **AG-004**: High-Performance Networking - Performance-critical systems

### Phase 3: Analysis & Testing
1. **SK-003**: Packet Capture - Essential for debugging
2. **SK-010**: Network Testing - Quality assurance
3. **SK-011**: Protocol Fuzzing - Security testing
4. **AG-005**: Network Analysis Expert - Debugging support
5. **AG-009**: Network Testing Expert - Test automation

### Phase 4: Traffic Management
1. **SK-008**: Load Balancer - High availability systems
2. **SK-013**: Proxy Server - Traffic interception
3. **AG-006**: Load Balancer Expert - Traffic engineering
4. **AG-008**: Proxy/Tunneling Expert - Proxy implementations

### Phase 5: Specialized Tools
1. **SK-006**: HTTP Protocol - Web protocol expertise
2. **SK-007**: gRPC Protocol - RPC systems
3. **SK-009**: DNS Protocol - Name resolution
4. **SK-012**: Event Loop - High-performance I/O
5. **SK-014**: Network Simulation - Testing environments
6. **SK-015**: Serialization - Data encoding
7. **AG-003**: Network Security Expert - Security focus
8. **AG-007**: WebSocket/Real-Time Expert - Real-time systems
9. **AG-010**: Security Testing Agent - Vulnerability discovery

---

## Summary Statistics

| Category | Count |
|----------|-------|
| Skills Identified | 15 |
| Agents Identified | 10 |
| Shared Skill Candidates | 6 |
| Shared Agent Candidates | 3 |
| Total Processes Covered | 30 |

---

**Created**: 2026-01-24
**Version**: 1.0.0
**Status**: Phase 4 - Skills and Agents Identified
**Next Step**: Phase 5 - Implement specialized skills and agents
