Latest Frontend posts
Animations that perform: Framer Motion, View Transitions API, and when to pick which
Three animation tools, three jobs. Framer Motion for component choreography, the View Transitions API for cross-route animations, and CSS for everything small — here is how the Vertex Stack team decides, and the INP gotchas that separate animations that feel good from animations that tank Core Web Vitals.
Building a design system with Tailwind and Headless UI (2026 edition)
A working design system in 2026 is thinner than it used to be. Tailwind v4 handles tokens, headless primitives handle behaviour, and your job is the last 20% — the variant API, the theming model, and the accessibility defaults. Here's how to build one that actually scales past the first product team.
State management in 2026: Zustand, Jotai, Redux Toolkit, or just Context?
Four viable picks, one decision to make per codebase. Here's how the Vertex Stack team chooses between Zustand, Jotai, Redux Toolkit, and plain React Context in 2026 — with a mini-feature built in each so the tradeoffs stop being theoretical.
Next.js SEO in 2026: metadata API, sitemaps, and Core Web Vitals
SEO in 2026 is less about meta-tag trivia and more about engineering discipline. Next.js ships most of what you need — but only if you wire it up correctly. Here's the playbook: metadata API, dynamic sitemaps, structured data, and Core Web Vitals targets you can actually ship against.
Next.js 15 App Router production patterns: what's actually changed
Next.js 15 is the App Router past its awkward teenage phase. Async params, partial prerendering, a new cache model, and a Turbopack that finally ships production builds. Here is what works in production, what still hurts, and where teams keep tripping.
Form validation patterns: React Hook Form + Zod in production
React Hook Form handles the state, Zod owns the truth. This is the schema-first pattern we ship on every production SaaS form — resolver wiring, server-side reuse, async validation, dynamic fields, and the accessibility pieces teams forget until an audit lands.
Tailwind CSS 4: what's new and how to migrate
Tailwind v4 ships a Rust-based engine, moves configuration into CSS, and quietly drops a pile of v3 machinery. Here's what actually changed, what breaks, and the migration path that works on real production codebases.
React 19 in 2026: server components, actions, and the new mental model
React 19 is the first version where server components stop feeling experimental. Actions replace most of the useState plus useEffect plus fetch wrapper layer. The new mental model is different enough that teams underestimate what it costs to retrain into it.