Redis & Caching Specialist

🎯 Agent Overview

Your comprehensive production guide to Redis - the world's fastest in-memory data store. Master how to leverage Redis for caching, real-time applications, high-performance systems, and distributed data solutions with focus on patterns, optimization, and enterprise deployment.

Perfect For: Backend developers, DevOps engineers, performance engineers, systems architects, real-time application builders

Your Success Path: Fundamentals → Data Structures → Caching Patterns → Advanced Features → Clustering & Scaling → Production Optimization

📊 Agent Expertise (100+ hours content)

Complete Core Competencies

1. Redis Fundamentals

• In-Memory Data Store: Why Redis, when to use Redis, performance characteristics
• Key-Value Model: Key design, expiration, eviction policies
• Use Cases: Caching, sessions, real-time, queues, leaderboards, analytics
• Architecture: Single-threaded event-driven, I/O multiplexing, persistence options

2. All Data Structures (Complete)

• Strings: SET, GET, INCR, DECR, APPEND, GETRANGE (40+ operations)
• Lists: LPUSH, RPUSH, LPOP, RPOP, LRANGE, LINDEX, LLEN (30+ operations)
• Hashes: HSET, HGET, HGETALL, HINCRBY (25+ operations)
• Sets: SADD, SMEMBERS, SINTER, SUNION, SDIFF (20+ operations)
• Sorted Sets: ZADD, ZRANGE, ZRANGEBYSCORE, ZRANK (30+ operations)
• Streams: XADD, XREAD, XRANGE, consumer groups (event sourcing)
• HyperLogLog: Cardinality estimation, PFADD, PFCOUNT
• Geospatial: Location data, GEOADD, GEORADIUS, GEOPOS
• Bitmaps: Bit operations, SETBIT, GETBIT, BITCOUNT

3. Advanced Features

• Transactions: MULTI, EXEC, WATCH, error handling
• Pub/Sub: Publisher-subscriber, pattern subscriptions, channels
• Lua Scripting: EVAL, EVALSHA, atomic operations
• Pipeline: Batch operations, reduce latency
• Cluster: Distributed Redis, slot management, failover

4. Persistence Options

• RDB (Snapshots): Point-in-time snapshots, SAVE, BGSAVE, configuration
• AOF (Append-Only File): Command log, rewrite, durability trade-offs
• Hybrid: RDB + AOF combination for safety
• Replication: Master-slave, full sync, incremental sync

5. Production Patterns (20+ patterns)

• Cache-Aside, Write-Through, Write-Behind
• Rate Limiting (token bucket, sliding window)
• Leaderboards (sorted sets)
• Session Management
• Distributed Locks
• Real-time Counters
• Pub/Sub Messaging
• Job Queues
• Bloom Filters
• Time Series

6. Monitoring & Operations

• Commands: INFO, STATS, MONITOR, SLOWLOG
• Memory Management: MEMORY STATS, MEMORY DOCTOR
• Persistence: SAVE, BGSAVE, SHUTDOWN
• Cluster: CLUSTER INFO, SLOTS, REPLICATION
• Security: ACL, authentication, TLS

7. Performance Optimization

• Memory Management: Key expiration, eviction policies
• Connection Pooling: Reducing connection overhead
• Batching: Pipelining for throughput
• Lua Scripting: Atomic operations
• Replication Tuning: Network optimization

8. Scaling & High Availability

• Replication: Master-slave, read replicas
• Cluster: Horizontal scaling, 16,384 slots
• Sentinel: Automatic failover, monitoring
• Connection Pooling: PgBouncer-like pooling
• Multi-datacenter: Geo-replication

9. Real-World Applications

• E-commerce (carts, inventory)
• Social Media (feeds, notifications)
• Gaming (leaderboards, presences)
• IoT (sensor data, aggregation)
• Real-time Analytics (counters, metrics)

Workflow Integration

SQL Fundamentals (understand data)
        ↓
Redis Specialist (accelerate with caching)
  ├→ Reduce database load
  ├→ Enable real-time features
  ├→ Scale horizontally
  └→ Build distributed systems

        ↓
Choose next:
  ├→ Data Engineer (for pipelines)
  ├→ MongoDB (for flexible storage)
  └→ PostgreSQL (for persistent data)

When to Learn This Agent

• Need high-performance caching
• Building real-time applications
• Implementing session management
• Creating leaderboards/rankings
• Building rate limiters
• Pub/Sub messaging systems
• Real-time analytics
• Distributed systems

Best Practices

• ✓ Choose appropriate data structure
• ✓ Plan key expiration strategy
• ✓ Monitor memory usage
• ✓ Use connection pooling
• ✓ Test backup/restore
• ✓ Implement replication
• ✓ Monitor replication lag
• ✓ Plan for growth
• ✓ Use ACL for security
• ✓ Monitor performance

Real-World Projects

• Project 5: Cache Implementation (1-2 weeks)
• Project 7: Real-Time Analytics (2-3 weeks)
• Advanced: Redis Cluster Setup (3-4 weeks)

After Completing This Agent

• ✅ Implement efficient caching
• ✅ Build real-time applications
• ✅ Manage sessions securely
• ✅ Create leaderboards
• ✅ Implement rate limiting
• ✅ Set up replication
• ✅ Deploy Redis cluster
• ✅ Optimize performance
• ✅ Handle failures gracefully
• ✅ Monitor production systems

---

Ready to master Redis? Run /skills redis now! 🚀