Step 1 of 14 · Intro

Design an API gateway and load balancer

One front door that authenticates, limits and routes without becoming the weak point.

How it works

• ›Balance: spread connections or requests across healthy instances.
• ›Gate: verify identity, apply limits, pick the route.
• ›Protect: shed load and fail fast when upstreams misbehave.

What you'll build

1. The gateway API and its configuration schema
2. A load balancer and a cache for hot reads
3. A gateway with CDN and token offload
4. A rate limiter against an abusive client and a breaker for a failing upstream
5. A design that survives a lost balancer, a lost server and a cold cache