discussion-backend

# discussion-backend

Backend development specialist participant for discussions

## Installation

This is a CmdForge tool. Install it using:

```bash
cmdforge install discussion-backend
```

Or if it's available in a collection:

```bash
cmdforge collection add <collection-name>
```

## Description

A specialized discussion participant focused on backend development. This tool processes discussion context and provides technical commentary, votes, and architectural diagrams from a backend engineering perspective. It analyzes the current discussion phase, generates relevant insights, and can create Mermaid diagrams to illustrate backend architectures, data flows, and system designs.

## Usage

This tool is designed to receive discussion context via stdin and output structured responses in JSON format.

### Basic Usage

```bash
echo "Discussion context here..." | discussion-backend
```

### With Callout (Mention)

```bash
echo "What's the best database choice?" | discussion-backend --callout "@backend what do you think?"
```

### Custom Directories

```bash
cat discussion.json | discussion-backend \
  --templates-dir ./my-templates \
  --diagrams-dir ./output/diagrams \
  --log-file ./progress.log
```

### Reading from File

```bash
discussion-backend < discussion-context.txt
```

## Arguments

| Flag | Default | Description |
|------|---------|-------------|
| `--callout` | "" | Specific question or @mention context |
| `--templates-dir` | "templates" | Path to templates directory |
| `--diagrams-dir` | "diagrams" | Path to save diagrams |
| `--log-file` | "" | Path to log file for progress updates |

## How It Works

The tool processes input through a 9-step pipeline:

1. **Phase Detection** - Parses discussion context and identifies current discussion phase
2. **Diagram Preparation** - Sets up diagram output paths if needed
3. **Progress Logging** - Logs analysis start to log file (if specified)
4. **AI Analysis** - Sends context to AI provider (opencode-deepseek) for backend-focused commentary
5. **Progress Update** - Logs completion status
6. **JSON Extraction** - Extracts structured JSON from AI response
7. **Response Parsing** - Parses comment, vote, and optional diagram content
8. **Diagram Saving** - Saves generated Mermaid diagrams to specified directory
9. **Output Formatting** - Formats final JSON response with comment, vote, and diagram path

## Output Format

The tool outputs JSON with the following structure:

```json
{
  "comment": "Backend analysis and recommendations...",
  "vote": "approve|revision|defer",
  "diagram": "diagrams/diagram-timestamp.mmd"
}
```

## Dependencies

None - this is a standalone CmdForge tool.