messaging

Design AWS messaging architectures with SQS, SNS, and EventBridge patterns.

15|20|Updated May 11, 2026

Search Tags:#messaging #aws #distributed systems #eventbridge #sqs #sns #event-driven architecture

Ready to run

npx skills add https://github.com/awslabs/startups --skill messaging-awslabs

💬 Prompt for ChatGPT / Claude Chat▼

Please help me install this Agent Skill.
Skill: messaging
Source: https://github.com/awslabs/startups/tree/main/solution-architecture/plugins/aws-dev-toolkit/skills/messaging
Command: npx skills add https://github.com/awslabs/startups --skill messaging-awslabs

SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION & REQUIREMENTS

💡 This Skill includes references (resource) components.

What problem does it solve?

This Skill helps teams choose, design, and troubleshoot AWS messaging architectures by providing guidance for reliable event-driven communication patterns, delivery handling, and service selection.

Core Features & Use Cases

AWS Messaging Architecture Design: Compare and apply SQS, SNS, and EventBridge patterns for queues, topics, event buses, routing, and asynchronous workflows.
Reliability and Operations Guidance: Configure dead-letter queues, retries, visibility timeouts, idempotency strategies, monitoring, and failure recovery approaches.
Event-Driven Pattern Support: Design fan-out, saga, CQRS, event sourcing, queue-based load leveling, and competing consumer architectures for production systems.

Quick Start

Use the messaging skill to recommend an AWS event-driven architecture for an application that needs reliable asynchronous processing and message delivery.

Frequently Asked Questions about messaging

High-intent search queries and answers about installing and using this skill.

FAQPage Schema

What's the best way to choose between SQS, SNS, and EventBridge for an AWS event-driven architecture?▼

AWS event-driven architecture selection depends on communication patterns: SQS provides queue-based load leveling, SNS enables fan-out pub/sub delivery, and EventBridge offers content-based event routing for complex asynchronous workflows.

How do I configure dead-letter queues and retries for AWS messaging services?▼

Configure dead-letter queues and retries by setting visibility timeouts on SQS queues, defining retry policies for failed message delivery, and implementing idempotency strategies to handle duplicate messages during failure recovery in production workloads.

How do I design a fan-out pattern using SNS and SQS for asynchronous processing?▼

Design an SNS and SQS fan-out pattern by subscribing multiple SQS queues to a single SNS topic, allowing messages to be delivered asynchronously to competing consumers for scalable parallel processing and reliable distributed workloads.

When should I use EventBridge event routing instead of direct SNS pub/sub messaging?▼

Use EventBridge event routing instead of SNS when your event-driven systems require content-based filtering, schema validation, or complex saga orchestration, whereas SNS is better suited for simple high-throughput fan-out messaging without conditional routing.

Can I implement CQRS and event sourcing patterns using AWS messaging services?▼

You can implement CQRS and event sourcing using EventBridge to route domain events and SQS to separate command and query workloads, enabling scalable distributed systems with asynchronous processing and reliable state reconstruction.

Why does my SQS visibility timeout cause duplicate processing in competing consumer architectures?▼

Duplicate processing in competing consumer architectures occurs when SQS visibility timeouts are too short, causing messages to become visible again before processing completes; adjusting timeout values and implementing idempotency strategies resolves this failure scenario.