Deep dives into Next.js performance, React architecture, how users see your app, and the decisions that shape great developer experience.
Part 4 of the series: A practical guide to migrating from the previous Next.js caching model to Cache Components. What changes, what breaks, and how Date.now() cost us several days on a real project.
Part 3 of the series: The difference between revalidateTag, updateTag, and revalidatePath in Next.js Cache Components. When to use which, how to design cache tags, and how to integrate CMS webhooks for on-demand revalidation.
Part 2 of the series: Where to place the "use cache" directive in your Next.js application: on data functions, on components, or not at all. How data-level caching, UI-level caching, and Suspense streaming work together in Partial Prerendering.
Part 1 of the series: How Next.js caching evolved from path-based ISR revalidation to explicit, opt-in Cache Components. The three cache directives, Partial Prerendering, and why caching in Next.js is no longer implicit.
Why "use cache", "use workflow", and "use step" are the right approach to infrastructure boundaries in JavaScript. The case for directives over wrapper functions, and why different infrastructure should mean different syntax.
Next.js has built-in support for reporting Core Web Vitals from real user sessions. How to set up the useReportWebVitals hook and send metrics to your analytics endpoint or Google Analytics.
How a Black Friday flash sale handled 3.2 million requests at 900/sec with a 0% error rate for $18 on Vercel. Why self-managed Kubernetes costs more than the invoice shows, and what actually absorbed the traffic.
How next/image handles format conversion, responsive sizing, lazy loading, and preloading. Why the sizes prop matters more than most teams think, and how browser primitives have changed image optimization.
What seven years of building enterprise e-commerce storefronts with Next.js taught me about static generation, caching, images, and the patterns that actually matter for performance and revenue.
Core Web Vitals measure real-world user experience: loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. What each metric means, what the thresholds are, and why TTFB matters too.