#98: Next.js 15.5, React Bits, Effect-Next.js, Streamdown, Concurrent Rendering & Actions, Better Auth with Next.js

Next.js 15.5 – This release focuses on developer experience by stabilizing typed routes for compile-time link checking and making the Node.js runtime for middleware production-ready. Turbopack builds are now in beta, showing 2–5x faster performance in production. The next lint command is also being phased out in favor of direct ESLint or Biome setups

► Better Auth with Next.js: A very good introduction – Alex Booker shows how Better Auth makes authentication in Next.js feel natural. In this 20 minute video he walks you through setting up sign-up, sign-in, password reset, social logins, and protecting pages

Arcjet - Painless security for developers – Implement bot protection and signup spam protection natively in code.

Taming React Component – The post suggests to treat components as two parts (UI + logic), move the logic into custom hooks, and avoid inline render helpers. This makes components easier to scan, test, and reuse

Next.js, React Router, TanStack: When To Use Each – Ankita Kulkarni’s React Summit talk compared Next.js, React Router v7, and TanStack Start. Spoiler: each shines in its own lane, but none is a silver bullet.

Can AI rebuild a Rails page in Next.js? We tried it – This experiment tests whether LLMs like Gemini and Claude could port a Rails-based events page to Next.js. The outcome: surprisingly good, but not flawless.

► Concurrent Rendering & Actions with Aurora Sharff – In this podcast episode Aurora talks about how transitions, optimistic updates, and new form actions are setting the stage for a more declarative, less error-prone way to handle async UI

React Bits – A free, open-source collection of 100+ animated, customizable React components to make your React app pop

effect-nextjs – A set of helpers for using Effect with the Next.js App Router. Lets you build pages, server components, and actions while using Effect's ecosystem for schema validation, dependency injection, and robust error handling

Visual Effect – An interactive visualization tool for the Effect library that shows you how Effect operations run over time with animated visuals and even synchronized sound effects.

Streamdown – A new component designed to render Markdown streamed from AI models. It gracefully handles unterminated blocks and includes support for GFM, LaTeX math, and Shiki-powered code blocks out of the box

Escape the vendor-locked in edge-runtime! Try Sevalla with $50 credit now. Your PaaS from the future – Prefer the power of a full Node.js environment? Get lower bandwidth costs and predictable pricing combined with real human support by developers. No seats, no surprise serverless bills. Ever.

Why LLMs Can't Really Build Software – This piece reframes the conversation around LLMs: instead of seeing them as replacements, we should see them as collaborators that need constant human oversight to be effective on real-world projects

5 Useful CSS functions using the new @function rule – A look at how the new CSS @function rule can be used to simplify common and complex styling patterns

A proposal for inline LLM instructions in HTML based on llms.txt – A proposal for a simple pattern to provide context to LLMs directly within a web page. It suggests using a script tag with a custom type to embed instructions, for making web content more accessible to AI systems

Typed Query Builders: Kysely vs. Drizzle – This guide helps you decide between two popular TypeScript database libraries. It explains how Kysely excels as a pure query builder for existing projects, while Drizzle offers a more complete ORM solution