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I hope you are doing well. This is the second blog entry on series by Kartavya from Automint - who visited our Himalayan HQ on recommendation by his CTO Manish Kumar. Automint helps you save 15-30% cost on your next mobile or car purchase.

Also, Automint is one of the users of Godspeed’s Nodejs framework and Saarthi (You can develop projects in any stack using Saarthi - our agentic extension in VSCode available in early preview today)

On to Kartavya’s account..

If you have not read the first blog, I suggest to read it first. My best wishes to Kartavya and Automint for their journey!

From Code to Craft: Key Engineering Lessons from My Time at Godspeed

When I stepped into Godspeed Systems, I expected to learn a few new tools, maybe refine my backend skills, and then move on.
What I didn’t expect was to leave with a whole new way of thinking about engineering.

This wasn’t just about code.
It was about process, clarity, structure, and the ability to design systems that scale for both humans and machines.

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JavaScript, Node.js, and Beyond

I began with the fundamentals revisiting JavaScript through targeted problem-solving and diving deeper into Node.js for backend development.
But the real breakthrough was not just in syntax or frameworks it was in how I approached building software.

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The Saarthi Way of SDLC

One of the standout experiences was working with Saarthi, Godspeed’s AI-powered autonomous coding agent. (It could do far more than just coding. It covered entire SDLC and can be used for Product Management or even marketing related tasks. There is no limit to what you can achieve with it, with your standard modes or your custom modes.

One of my larger activities during the stay, aside from learning was generating test strategy and test cases for Automint’s services.
Instead of rushing into writing tests, we began with Test Strategy Documents (TSDs) The QA lead mode outlined QA objectives, coverage, scenarios, edge cases, and expected results, based on the supplied PRD and codebase.

This documentation-first, review and test based approach gave me lot of confidence in shipping:

• Ensured full traceability from requirements to validation

• Ensured I deliver working and high quality implementation against requirements.

• Reduced time to feedback and mistakes.

• Reduced hidden bugs by enforcing test isolation and clarity

Saarthi also proved invaluable beyond testing. It coached me on topics I wanted to learn, creating my learning roadmap, giving assignments and tips as I do them. While Saarthi supports all popular languages and frameworks, it also generated Godspeed’s Meta framework-aligned code, which I grew to appreciate and prefer over typical Nodejs Express based codebase. The code review mode did extensive reviews including checking for compliance. Saarthi was even assisting in product strategy and aligning all my work based on requirement documentation.

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Godspeed JS Framework way of backend development

When you’re building backend services the usual way with Node.js and Express, you end up writing a lot of boilerplate defining routes, wiring middleware, handling validation, plugging in Swagger manually, and repeating the same patterns across services. Godspeed, on the other hand, takes a schema-first, event-driven approach where your APIs, async events, and datasources are all defined declaratively in YAML with JSON Schema as the single source of truth. That means input/output validation, Swagger generation, authentication, and authorization are baked in by default, instead of being stitched together later. The difference feels like moving from laying bricks one by one (vanilla Express) to assembling with prefabricated blocks (Godspeed).

What really stands out is how consistent and scalable it feels. In Express, different developers might structure routes, validations, and error handling in their own style, leading to fragmentation as the codebase grows. With Godspeed, those guardrails are already in place, so teams can focus on business logic instead of reinventing the wheel for every endpoint. Plus, the plugin system makes it easy to bring in Kafka, GraphQL, Prisma, or Redis without messy integrations. You still get the flexibility of Node.js under the hood, but the meta-framework gives you speed, structure, and confidence that your services are production-ready from day one.

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CI Pipelines and Guardrails

Godspeed reinforced a truth: automation is only as good as the discipline behind it.

We implemented:

• Pre-push Git hooks blocking code if linting, type checks, or tests failed

• Structured PR processes every merge request linked to a PRD or TRD

• Mandatory CI pass no code made it to production without meeting quality gates

This created a culture where speed didn’t mean sacrificing quality.

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Security and Data Governance

Security here wasn’t a last-minute checklist it was baked into every decision.

I worked hands-on with:

• Zero Trust policies access granted strictly on verified identity and least privilege

• RBAC & ABAC models balancing role-based and attribute-based permissions

• JWT authentication stateless session handling with protected routes

• Data encryption AES for storage, TLS for transmission

• Data redaction masking sensitive logs before they ever left the server

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Schema-Driven Development and the Single Source of Truth

Perhaps the most transformative learning was schema-first development within the Godspeed Framework.

From a single Prisma-based schema, we could auto-generate :

• CRUD APIs (via CLI) with encryption in database as per the schema

• Universal API schema and decoupled event handlers for Express, MCP, socket of other event sources (via CLI)

• API request/response validation and auth (handled by framework against API schema)

• Swagger docs and Postman collections (via CLI)

• Functional tests (using Saarthi)

• Frontend forms and routes (via CLI)

• MCP server code for UI-backend sync (using open source tools)

The impact was huge:
One schema change instantly updated backend, frontend, docs, and tests reducing redundancy and increasing velocity.

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System Design and Architecture Thinking

I did a theoretical study of:

• Client-server, microservices, event-driven, and peer-to-peer architectures

• CAP theorem trade-offs in distributed databases

• Database sharding, replication, caching strategies, and load balancing

• Resilience patterns circuit breakers, retries, timeouts, fallbacks

• Observability with Prometheus, Grafana, and OpenTelemetry

• Storage design block, file, and object systems

The result was a more holistic understanding of how to design for scale and resilience.

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Engineering Mindset: More Than Just Code

If there’s one thing Godspeed hammered home, it’s that great engineering is a mindset.

Some philosophies that stuck with me:

• Start with “Why” clarity before execution

• Structured thinking define goals, design processes, measure outcomes

• Documentation-first not just for humans, but AI agents too

• Logs as allies structured, contextual, and actionable

• Future-proofing solve today’s problem without breaking tomorrow’s system

By designing documentation to be AI-ready, we made it possible for agents and LLMs to retrieve, interpret, and act on knowledge as easily as a human would.

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Applying This at Automint

I’m already looking forward to bringing these learnings into my work at Automint, including:

• A standardized test automation framework with documentation-first principles

• SDLC guardrails with PRD, TRD, and TSD integration

• A RAG-based customer support bot with accurate, document-aware responses

• Internal AI-powered developer workflows to reduce manual repetition and boost efficiency

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Closing Thoughts

My time at Godspeed wasn’t just about learning a framework or mastering a tool.
It was about adopting a craftsman’s mindset where every line of code, every process, and every decision is deliberate, traceable, and scalable.

This is engineering that lasts.
And it’s exactly the kind of engineering I want to keep building.

You can visit us too!

If you wish to have a journey of peace of mind, and learning AI or tech skills, or build your own product, a visit at our space may be worth checking out. If interested to know more about us, or come and meet me or progressive peers around, you are more than welcome to apply for a visit to our mountain HQ. You may find more on our residency blog.
Take care and have a lovely day!