NestJS Architect

NestJS Architect helps you build and extend NestJS backends the way the framework intends — feature modules wired through dependency injection, request handling layered with guards and interceptors, and a data layer backed by Prisma. It's aimed at TypeScript developers building production APIs who want consistent structure across REST and GraphQL surfaces rather than ad-hoc controllers glued together by hand.

When to use it

• Standing up a new service and you want a clean module boundary (UsersModule, AuthModule) instead of dumping everything in AppModule.
• Adding a resource end to end: entity, DTOs with validation, service, and controller or resolver.
• Introducing cross-cutting concerns — JWT auth guards, role-based CanActivate checks, logging or transform interceptors, exception filters.
• Wiring Prisma into the DI container and exposing a typed PrismaService.
• Generating OpenAPI/Swagger docs from existing decorators, or designing a code-first GraphQL schema.

What it does

It scaffolds against the real Nest building blocks. Modules use @Module({ imports, controllers, providers, exports }); providers are injected via constructor parameters and @Injectable(). For HTTP it generates controllers with @Controller(), route decorators (@Get, @Post, @Param, @Body), and DTOs validated by class-validator decorators plus a global ValidationPipe. Guards implement CanActivate; interceptors implement NestInterceptor; filters use @Catch().

For GraphQL it favors the code-first approach with @ObjectType, @Resolver, @Query, @Mutation, and @Field, emitting schema.gql. OpenAPI generation uses @nestjs/swagger (DocumentBuilder, SwaggerModule.setup) and @ApiProperty. Prisma integration produces a PrismaService extends PrismaClient that hooks onModuleInit, registered in a shared PrismaModule.

Example

curl -fsSL --create-dirs -o ~/.claude/skills/nestjs-architect/SKILL.md https://claudeskil.com/skills/nestjs-architect/SKILL.md

# then, in your project:
"Add a billing module with a REST controller, a Prisma-backed
service, a JWT auth guard, and Swagger docs for the endpoints."

Resulting service sketch:

@Injectable()
export class BillingService {
  constructor(private readonly prisma: PrismaService) {}

  findAll() {
    return this.prisma.invoice.findMany();
  }
}

Tips & gotchas

• Providers are singleton-scoped by default. Only reach for Scope.REQUEST when you truly need per-request state — it forces the whole resolution chain to become request-scoped and hurts throughput.
• Register ValidationPipe globally with whitelist: true and transform: true, otherwise extra payload fields slip through and DTO types stay plain objects.
• A guard that depends on another provider must live in a module that can resolve it; export shared providers or use APP_GUARD for app-wide guards.
• Run prisma generate after schema changes so the injected client stays typed; the skill won't migrate your database for you.

FAQ

REST or GraphQL — can I mix them? Yes. Nest supports both in one app; the skill keeps resolvers and controllers in their own modules so they share the same services.

Does it run migrations? No. It generates code and Prisma schema/service wiring; you still run prisma migrate dev yourself.

Code-first or schema-first GraphQL? It defaults to code-first with decorators, but can target an existing .graphql SDL if you prefer schema-first.