Skill — IoT Platform

When this skill activates

This skill activates when building IoT device management systems, telemetry ingestion pipelines, firmware over-the-air (OTA) update mechanisms, device twin/shadow architectures, edge-to-cloud data flows, MQTT brokers, device provisioning, or industrial IoT platforms.

Mandatory actions when this skill is active

Before writing any code

1. Design device lifecycle management: provisioning (certificate issuance, device registration, initial config push) → active (telemetry streaming, command execution) → maintenance (firmware updates, config changes) → decommissioning (certificate revocation, data archival), with state machine transitions and audit trails
2. Model telemetry ingestion architecture: devices publish MQTT messages (QoS 1 for critical, QoS 0 for high-frequency) → broker buffers (HiveMQ, AWS IoT Core) → stream processor (Kafka, Kinesis) → time-series database (InfluxDB, TimescaleDB) → analytics/alerting, with backpressure handling and dead letter queues
3. Map device twin/shadow pattern: desired state (cloud wants device at firmware v2.1, config A) vs reported state (device currently at v2.0, config B) → delta detection → command sent to device → device applies change → reports new state → convergence detected

During implementation

• Implement MQTT broker with scalability: support 100K+ concurrent connections, message throughput (10K msg/sec), QoS 0/1/2 support (at-most-once, at-least-once, exactly-once), retained messages (last known state), last will and testament (detect disconnections), topic ACLs (device can only publish to devices/{device_id}/telemetry)
• Build device provisioning flow: device boots with factory cert → requests device-specific cert from provisioning service (using CSR) → service validates manufacturing batch, issues cert signed by CA, registers device in registry → device stores cert in secure element (TPM, TEE) → uses cert for future MQTT authentication
• Design firmware OTA update with safety: cloud creates firmware campaign (target devices by tag, rollout percentage), device polls for updates (or push notification), downloads firmware chunk-by-chunk (resumable, checksum verified), stores in secondary partition, validates signature (RSA/ECDSA), swaps partitions on next boot, rollback on boot failure (watchdog timer, 3 attempts)
• Implement device twin with conflict resolution: cloud updates desired state (twin document with version), device polls for changes, detects delta, applies change, reports new state, cloud reconciles (last-write-wins or version vector), handle offline devices (queue commands, apply on reconnect up to 7 days)
• Build telemetry pipeline with windowing: ingest raw sensor data (temperature, pressure, vibration at 1 Hz) → stream processor aggregates (1-minute windows: avg, min, max, stddev) → anomaly detection (Z-score >3 triggers alert) → store aggregates (reduce storage 60x), retain raw data for 7 days (hot storage), archive aggregates for 5 years (cold storage)

After implementation

• Validate device connectivity resilience: simulate network failures (disconnect device mid-message), verify QoS 1 retries (message delivered after reconnect), test persistent sessions (broker retains subscriptions), measure reconnect time (<5s for 95th percentile), verify backoff exponential retry (1s, 2s, 4s, 8s, max 60s)
• Test firmware OTA reliability: simulate power loss during download (resume from last chunk), corrupt firmware signature (device rejects), partial update failure (automatic rollback to previous version), measure update success rate (>99% for targeted devices), track update latency (time from campaign start to device running new firmware)
• Execute telemetry load testing: simulate 10K devices sending data at 1 Hz (10K msg/sec), measure broker latency (p99 <100ms), stream processor lag (<1s behind real-time), database write throughput (handle burst traffic 10x normal), verify no message loss (QoS 1 delivery confirmed)

Self-check before task completion

• [ ] Device lifecycle managed: provisioning (cert issuance, registration), active (telemetry/commands), maintenance (OTA updates), decommissioning (cert revocation)
• [ ] MQTT broker scalable: 100K+ concurrent connections, QoS 0/1/2 support, topic ACLs, retained messages, LWT for disconnect detection
• [ ] Device provisioning secure: factory cert → CSR → device-specific cert (signed by CA), stored in secure element (TPM/TEE), cert-based MQTT auth
• [ ] Firmware OTA robust: resumable downloads (chunk-by-chunk), signature validation (RSA/ECDSA), dual-partition swap, automatic rollback on failure
• [ ] Device twin functional: desired vs reported state, delta detection, command queuing for offline devices (7 day retention), conflict resolution
• [ ] Telemetry pipeline optimized: windowed aggregation (1-min windows), anomaly detection (Z-score >3), hot/cold storage tiering (7 days raw, 5 years aggregates)
• [ ] Connectivity resilient: QoS 1 retries, persistent sessions, exponential backoff (1s to 60s), reconnect time <5s for 95th percentile