[Review] AutoBE Hackathon 2025-09-12 - simple notification workflow microservice

[TigerWest]

Conversation Links

https://hackathon.autobe.dev/?session-id=01993e89-c13b-731f-be57-34893a9bd7a2

1. Requirements Analysis

The requirements analysis demonstrates exceptional thoroughness and business understanding.
The team showed impressive domain expertise in notification workflow systems, with comprehensive documentation covering user roles, permissions, and complex DAG workflow structures.
The business requirements specification and user scenarios are well-articulated and realistic.

However, a critical design inconsistency emerges throughout the implementation.
While the initial requirements explicitly stated "No authentication/authorization" as a constraint, presumably for a microservices environment, the documentation and codebase extensively implement complex authentication and authorization systems (workflowManager, triggerOperator, systemAdmin, workerService roles).
This fundamental contradiction between stated constraints and actual implementation introduces unnecessary complexity that cascades throughout the entire system architecture.
The authentication logic appears repeatedly in API designs, database schemas, and test suites, creating over-engineering patterns.
In microservices architectures, authentication is typically handled at the gateway or service mesh level, making the application-level authentication implementation redundant and unnecessarily complex.
This design decision significantly impacts system maintainability and deviates from the original constraint specifications.

2. Database Design

The Prisma schema design is professionally structured and well-normalized.
The modular approach with 6 separate schema files demonstrates good organization, while the foreign key relationships and
cascade operations are properly implemented.
Notable strengths include comprehensive audit fields, soft deletion support, and performance-conscious indexing strategies.

However, a critical gap exists from a Domain-Driven Design perspective.
While the workflow is correctly modeled as an Aggregate Root with nodes and edges as entities, the implementation completely lacks aggregate boundary enforcement and invariant validation at the code level.
Essential business rules such as DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) validation, cycle detection, and entry_node existence verification are entirely missing.
The database schema merely defines data structures without implementing the domain logic necessary to ensure workflow validity.
There's no evidence of Repository patterns or Domain Services that would maintain aggregate consistency.
This means invalid workflow structures (cycles, orphaned nodes, missing entry points) could be persisted to the database, violating core business invariants.
The absence of these critical validation layers represents a significant architectural gap between the well-designed schema and the missing domain implementation.

3. API Design

The API architecture showcases excellent TypeScript integration with Nestia, resulting in type-safe endpoints with auto-generated documentation.
The consistent RESTful patterns demonstrate technical proficiency.

But there are opportunities to enhance the API design philosophy.
the current table-centric CRUD pattern could benefit from domain-driven refinement.
Transitioning to aggregate-oriented APIs centered around the Workflow aggregate root would significantly improve client usability and data consistency.
For example, introducing domain-focused endpoints like "create complete workflow" that handle workflows, nodes, and edges atomically would provide a more intuitive and robust API experience.
The current structure effectively leverages AutoBE's code generation capabilities, but adding business-specific customizations would create a more practical API that better aligns with domain requirements.

4. Test Code

There are opportunities to strengthen the testing strategy further.
While current tests effectively cover CRUD operations and authentication flows, adding tests for core workflow business logic
would enhance robustness.

5. Implementation Code

Key areas require implementation to realize the intended architecture.
First, while the design documents clearly outline an API/Worker separation pattern, the actual Worker service implementation with its workflow engine is absent.
The core engine logic for processing trigger instances, executing nodes sequentially, and managing execution contexts is missing, leaving the system's primary functionality non-operational.
Second, the Provider layer currently performs only basic database operations without implementing essential business logic
such as workflow validation, template rendering, or state management.
The absence of job queue integration (like BullMQ) means delay nodes and retry mechanisms cannot function as designed. The current implementation consists primarily of API server scaffolding generated by AutoBE, while the Worker service responsible for actual workflow execution exists only in planning documents without corresponding code.

Estimated Code Proficiency Level

mid

🙌 Overall Review

1. AutoBE's Major Weaknesses:
   While AutoBE excels at CRUD scaffolding, it cannot generate domain-specific logic such as workflow validation,
   DAG integrity checks, or template processing.
   The table-centric API generation hinders aggregate-based design, conflicting with Domain-Driven Design principles.
   The lack of guidance for bridging the gap between requirements and generated code leaves developers to implement critical business logic without clear patterns.
   The tool generates structure without substance, requiring significant manual intervention for production readiness.

2. Generated Code Quality Level:
   From a structural perspective, the code achieves an upper-intermediate quality level.
   TypeScript type definitions, consistent file organization, and clear layer separation are excellent.
   However, from a business logic perspective, requiring substantial additional development to reach production-ready status.
   The code is a well-organized skeleton that lacks the muscles and organs of actual business functionality.