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name: event-store-design description: "Design and implement event stores for event-sourced systems. Use when building event sourcing infrastructure, choosing event store technologies, or implementing event persistence patterns." risk: unknown source: community date_added: "2026-02-27"

Event Store Design

Comprehensive guide to designing event stores for event-sourced applications.

Do not use this skill when

• The task is unrelated to event store design
• You need a different domain or tool outside this scope

Instructions

• Clarify goals, constraints, and required inputs.
• Apply relevant best practices and validate outcomes.
• Provide actionable steps and verification.
• If detailed examples are required, open resources/implementation-playbook.md.

Use this skill when

• Designing event sourcing infrastructure
• Choosing between event store technologies
• Implementing custom event stores
• Optimizing event storage and retrieval
• Setting up event store schemas
• Planning for event store scaling

Core Concepts

1. Event Store Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Event Store                       │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐ │
│  │   Stream 1   │  │   Stream 2   │  │   Stream 3   │ │
│  │ (Aggregate)  │  │ (Aggregate)  │  │ (Aggregate)  │ │
│  ├─────────────┤  ├─────────────┤  ├─────────────┤ │
│  │ Event 1     │  │ Event 1     │  │ Event 1     │ │
│  │ Event 2     │  │ Event 2     │  │ Event 2     │ │
│  │ Event 3     │  │ ...         │  │ Event 3     │ │
│  │ ...         │  │             │  │ Event 4     │ │
│  └─────────────┘  └─────────────┘  └─────────────┘ │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Global Position: 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 5 → 6 → ...     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

2. Event Store Requirements

| Requirement | Description | | ----------------- | ---------------------------------- | | Append-only | Events are immutable, only appends | | Ordered | Per-stream and global ordering | | Versioned | Optimistic concurrency control | | Subscriptions | Real-time event notifications | | Idempotent | Handle duplicate writes safely |

Technology Comparison

| Technology | Best For | Limitations | | ---------------- | ------------------------- | -------------------------------- | | EventStoreDB | Pure event sourcing | Single-purpose | | PostgreSQL | Existing Postgres stack | Manual implementation | | Kafka | High-throughput streaming | Not ideal for per-stream queries | | DynamoDB | Serverless, AWS-native | Query limitations | | Marten | .NET ecosystems | .NET specific |

Templates

Template 1: PostgreSQL Event Store Schema

-- Events table
CREATE TABLE events (
    id UUID PRIMARY KEY DEFAULT gen_random_uuid(),
    stream_id VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    stream_type VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    event_type VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    event_data JSONB NOT NULL,
    metadata JSONB DEFAULT '{}',
    version BIGINT NOT NULL,
    global_position BIGSERIAL,
    created_at TIMESTAMPTZ DEFAULT NOW(),

    CONSTRAINT unique_stream_version UNIQUE (stream_id, version)
);

-- Index for stream queries
CREATE INDEX idx_events_stream_id ON events(stream_id, version);

-- Index for global subscription
CREATE INDEX idx_events_global_position ON events(global_position);

-- Index for event type queries
CREATE INDEX idx_events_event_type ON events(event_type);

-- Index for time-based queries
CREATE INDEX idx_events_created_at ON events(created_at);

-- Snapshots table
CREATE TABLE snapshots (
    stream_id VARCHAR(255) PRIMARY KEY,
    stream_type VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    snapshot_data JSONB NOT NULL,
    version BIGINT NOT NULL,
    created_at TIMESTAMPTZ DEFAULT NOW()
);

-- Subscriptions checkpoint table
CREATE TABLE subscription_checkpoints (
    subscription_id VARCHAR(255) PRIMARY KEY,
    last_position BIGINT NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
    updated_at TIMESTAMPTZ DEFAULT NOW()
);

Template 2: Python Event Store Implementation

from dataclasses import dataclass, field
from datetime import datetime
from typing import Any, Optional, List
from uuid import UUID, uuid4
import json
import asyncpg

@dataclass
class Event:
    stream_id: str
    event_type: str
    data: dict
    metadata: dict = field(default_factory=dict)
    event_id: UUID = field(default_factory=uuid4)
    version: Optional[int] = None
    global_position: Optional[int] = None
    created_at: datetime = field(default_factory=datetime.utcnow)


class EventStore:
    def __init__(self, pool: asyncpg.Pool):
        self.pool = pool

    async def append_events(
        s