Architecture, real systems, product decisions and technical lessons. Everything reviewed with my own judgment before it ships.
240 articles published
Vercel published v16.3.6 and v15.5.26 on the same day, September 22, 2026. I read both release notes on GitHub to see what goes into each branch and what it means for anyone who hasn't migrated to App Router 16 yet.
Sep 26 2026 · 5′ · Tutorials · Next.js · React
I confused revalidatePath with revalidateTag on a small project and ended up invalidating pages that had nothing to do with the change. Here's the real difference between the two cache granularities in Next.js 16, with a decision checklist.
Sep 04 2026 · 7′ · Tutorials · Next.js · React
Server Actions in Next.js 16 App Router makes mutations dead simple without writing an endpoint. But when you need client-side cache, optimistic revalidation, or reactive data shared across components, that's where Server Actions falls short — and TanStack Query steps in to solve that, not to replace it.
Aug 17 2026 · 8′ · Tutorials · TypeScript · app-router
Path aliases look innocent until the production build fails with no clear message. I documented the 3 most common breakage cases in a monorepo with Next.js 16 App Router and strict TypeScript, and the config pattern that survived.
Aug 14 2026 · 9′ · Tutorials · TypeScript · pnpm
Rate limiting isn't an npm dependency — it's an abuse policy. Before copying middleware, you need to define what asset you're protecting, what abuse pattern you expect, and what a false positive costs you. A guide with a decision matrix, real gotchas, and observability for Next.js.
Jun 22 2026 · 9′ · Tutorials · TypeScript · nextjs
OpenTelemetry in Next.js works, but the default propagator silently breaks the trace at the edge/node boundary. Here's what you need to configure explicitly so context doesn't vanish between Middleware, Server Components, and Server Actions.
Jun 17 2026 · 8′ · Tutorials · TypeScript · nextjs
This isn't another RSC tutorial. It's the conceptual map I built after reading the official docs and understanding why the folklore around 'always use use client' is wrong — and what actually happens when you put Server Components in a real layout with dynamic data.
Jun 09 2026 · 9′ · Tutorials · TypeScript · nextjs
I tested 4 authorization patterns in Next.js 16 Middleware with edge runtime. One causes silent race conditions, another gives you unexpected latency, and only one scales without compromises. Here's the honest tradeoff analysis of each.
Jun 04 2026 · 9′ · Tutorials · TypeScript · nextjs
export const revalidate = 0 makes a Next.js App Router segment dynamic, forcing it to fetch fresh data on every request instead of serving from the Full Route Cache. Here's what it actually does, how it differs from no-store and force-dynamic, and how to decide which one your data actually needs.
May 25 2026 · 8′ · Tutorials · React · TypeScript