Font Loading in 2026: Why next/font Isn't Always the Answer
next/font is great until it isn't. A practical breakdown of when to use it, when to ship raw @font-face, and how to stop fonts from wrecking your LCP and CLS scores.
June 22, 2026 6 min
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Category · Web Development
Web development guides for modern teams
Next.js, React, performance, design systems, and edge runtime patterns.
View Transitions in the App Router: The Good, the Janky, and the Layout Shifts
Cross-document view transitions finally landed in stable browsers and Next.js shipped a primitive for them. Here's what actually works in production, what still tears, and how to keep CLS honest.
June 20, 2026 7 min
Middleware Is Not a Router: What We Learned Rebuilding Auth on the Edge
Next.js middleware looks like the perfect place for auth. Then your bundle balloons, your Edge runtime chokes on a Node API, and your login redirects loop. Here's how we untangled it.
June 17, 2026 6 min
Cache Tags in Next.js: How We Stopped Nuking the Entire CDN on Every Publish
A war story about how `revalidateTag` and a disciplined tagging scheme replaced our nightly full-cache purge — and the four gotchas we hit getting there in production.
June 14, 2026 7 min
Streaming SSR and Suspense Boundaries: Where to Draw the Line
Streaming SSR is free performance — until it isn't. Where you place Suspense boundaries decides whether your page feels fast or stutters its way through a waterfall of spinners.
June 12, 2026 7 min
React Server Components and the Prop Serialization Wall
Server Components feel magical until you try to pass a Date, a class instance, or a function through the boundary. Here's how to design around the serialization wall instead of fighting it.
June 9, 2026 7 min
Partial Prerendering in Production: What Breaks When You Turn It On
Partial Prerendering looked like free performance on the demo slide. Then we shipped it. Here's what actually breaks when you flip the flag on a real Next.js app — and how we'd roll it out now.
June 6, 2026 7 min
Server Actions at Scale: The Hidden Cost of Treating Them Like API Routes
Server actions feel like free API endpoints. They aren't. Here's what we learned shipping them to production traffic, and the patterns that kept latency and bills in check.
June 4, 2026 7 min
The `use` Hook Is a Footgun: When to Reach for It in React 19 (and When to Walk Away)
React 19's `use` hook looks like a cleaner way to read promises and context. In production it has sharp edges. Here's where it earns its keep and where it quietly tanks your app.
June 1, 2026 6 min
Tokens, Not Themes: Migrating a React Design System to CSS Variables Without Breaking Production
A practical walkthrough of moving a React design system from styled-components themes to CSS custom properties and design tokens — without a big-bang rewrite or a Monday morning rollback.
May 29, 2026 6 min
Font Loading in Next.js 15: Why Your LCP Still Sucks
next/font is supposed to make fonts a solved problem. It isn't. Here's why your Largest Contentful Paint still regresses, and how to actually fix it.
May 27, 2026 6 min
View Transitions in Next.js: The Animation API That Finally Works
The View Transitions API graduated from Chrome-only experiment to a real cross-browser feature. Here's how to wire it into Next.js App Router without breaking streaming, hydration, or your sanity.
May 24, 2026 6 min
Cache Invalidation in Next.js App Router: A Field Guide
revalidateTag, revalidatePath, and the Data Cache look simple until you ship them. Here's how we reason about Next.js caching layers, what bites teams in production, and the mental model we wish we'd had on day one.
May 21, 2026 6 min
Streaming Suspense Boundaries: Where to Put Them So TTFB Actually Drops
Suspense in the Next.js App Router is a TTFB lever, not a loading spinner. Here's how we decide where the boundaries go on real product pages — and where they backfire.
May 19, 2026 7 min
React 19's useOptimistic in Anger: Patterns That Survive Network Failures
useOptimistic feels magical in demos and brittle in production. Here's how we wire it up so optimistic UI doesn't lie to users when the network goes sideways.
May 16, 2026 6 min
Partial Prerendering in Next.js: When the Hype Meets Real Apps
Partial Prerendering promises the speed of static with the freshness of dynamic. Here's what actually happens when you ship it past a marketing site, and where it quietly bites.
May 13, 2026 6 min
Server Actions in Production: What Breaks at Scale
Server Actions look magical in demos. Six months into a real Next.js App Router build, here are the failure modes we keep hitting — and the patterns that actually hold up under traffic.
May 12, 2026 7 min