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consensus-protocol-library skill

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This skill helps you design, analyze, and implement consensus protocols like Paxos, Raft, and PBFT with guided safety and liveness checks.

npx playbooks add skill a5c-ai/babysitter --skill consensus-protocol-library

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SKILL.md
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---
name: consensus-protocol-library
description: Reference implementations and specifications of consensus protocols
allowed-tools:
  - Bash
  - Read
  - Write
  - Edit
  - Glob
  - Grep
metadata:
  specialization: computer-science
  domain: science
  category: distributed-systems
  phase: 6
---

# Consensus Protocol Library

## Purpose

Provides expert guidance on consensus protocol design, analysis, and implementation for distributed systems.

## Capabilities

- Paxos, Raft, PBFT specifications
- Protocol comparison matrix
- Safety/liveness property templates
- Message complexity analysis
- Protocol variant catalog
- Failure mode analysis

## Usage Guidelines

1. **Protocol Selection**: Choose appropriate consensus protocol
2. **Specification Review**: Understand protocol specification
3. **Property Verification**: Verify safety and liveness
4. **Comparison**: Compare protocols for use case
5. **Implementation**: Guide implementation decisions

## Tools/Libraries

- TLA+ specifications
- Reference implementations
- Protocol documentation

Overview

This skill provides reference implementations and clear specifications for mainstream consensus protocols used in distributed systems. It bundles formal models, practical analysis, and implementation guidance to help engineers choose and build reliable consensus layers. The library emphasizes safety, liveness, and failure-mode reasoning for production-grade systems.

How this skill works

The skill inspects protocol specifications (Paxos, Raft, PBFT) and offers executable reference implementations and TLA+ models for formal verification. It produces comparative matrices, message-complexity analysis, and templates for proving safety and liveness properties. It also catalogs protocol variants and failure-mode analyses to guide design and testing choices.

When to use it

  • Designing a new distributed system needing leader election or replicated state machines
  • Evaluating trade-offs between performance, fault tolerance, and complexity
  • Preparing formal verification or model checking of consensus logic
  • Implementing production-ready replication layers or consensus modules
  • Auditing an existing system for safety and liveness gaps

Best practices

  • Start with the protocol comparison matrix to match guarantees to system requirements
  • Use provided TLA+ models early to catch liveness and safety violations before coding
  • Treat reference implementations as blueprints, adapting optimizations for your network and failure assumptions
  • Document failure scenarios and test them with deterministic fault injection
  • Keep protocol variants and extensions isolated behind clear interfaces for easier upgrades

Example use cases

  • Selecting between Raft and Paxos for a metadata service based on operational complexity and recovery time
  • Using PBFT variants for permissioned blockchain prototypes where Byzantine tolerance is required
  • Running message-complexity analysis to predict bandwidth needs for a geo-distributed cluster
  • Applying safety/liveness templates to create formal proofs for critical consensus properties
  • Integrating a reference implementation into an orchestration agent to manage deterministic rollouts

FAQ

Which protocols are included?

Paxos, Raft, and PBFT with documented variants and common extensions.

Are formal models provided?

Yes. TLA+ specifications and verification templates are provided to check safety and liveness properties.