🍿 Frontend Snacks: I made an AI minion… and it changed how I build apps


Hey Reader,

Last week, I gave a talk at React Paris about Building your own AI minion, basically an AI Agent Toolkit for modern apps. I show my workflow and how I have automated a lot.

The room was full, the energy was electric ⚡, and it turned into one of my favourite talks I’ve given. You can 🎥 watch the video here and the slides are here.

🍿 Our Weekly Snack: Stop calling "redirect()" inside a try/catch block in Next.js

Stop calling "redirect()" inside a try/catch block in Next.js

💡 Here's Why

When you add a redirect() from `next/navigation` in a try/catch block, the redirect() throws a special internal error on purpose and that's how Next.js App Router as a framework knows to redirect the user.

However, if you add redirect in a try block, your catch block will catch it as it's just like any other error and the user won't redirect.

🧠 The Fix

→ Move redirect() outside the try/catch block so your catch won't catch it.

🎁 If you're interested, you can download this free cheatsheet covering 29 common mistakes just like this one in React and Next.js.

🚀 Latest Frontend News

LIBRARY UPDATES

Shadcn just dropped npx shadcn apply.A single command that swaps your entire design system: components, themes, colors, CSS variables, fonts, and icons all at once. Apply, test, repeat

Vercel just dropped a new agent skill for React View Transitions. Your coding agent can now add smooth, native browser animations between pages and UI states

Next.js now has a stable Adapter API that allows it to be deployed to Vercel, Cloudflare, Netlify, AWS, or anywhere else using the same public contract, no vendor lock-in

TanStack DB 0.6 adds local storage and offline support. Think of it like giving your app a memory that doesn't disappear when you close it or lose wifi


GREAT TOOLS

Stop uploading your files to random servers. FileWash runs everything client-side, image compression, PDF merging, background removal, all in the browser, nothing leaves your device

AI

Achieve 100% success rate by including Agents.md. Here, is the eval score by Next.js cross Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, and Gemini CLI.

Stop merging agent PRs, Vercel just shared their internal framework for catching the stuff agents miss before it hits production

GREAT READ

Isomorphic JavaScript means your code runs on the server and the browser. This is how Next.js, Nuxt, and SvelteKit work under the hood, here's a breakdown of the concept

SECURITY VULNERABILITIES

Axios was recently compromised via social engineering of the maintainer's account


🤔 What did you think of the Newsletter?

If you’ve published a blog post or shipped something, feel free to reply to this email and it comes straight to my inbox. I’m always looking for great community work to consider featuring.

All past newsletters can be found here. You can email me at me@kulkarniankita.com to advertise/sponsor the newsletter.

For those curious, I write all my emails using Convertkit.

See you next week!

Ankita Kulkarni

Join 9200+ subscribers reading by weekly personalized Newsletter that helps developers level up their skills through weekly Frontend and Leadership Snacks. You get a deep dive into a Tech topic, Actionable tips to excel in your career and a toolbox!

Read more from Ankita Kulkarni
A terminal interface displays commands for a tool called next-browser, designed for AI agents to analyze and monitor Next.js applications.

Hey Reader, This week, Next.js 16.2 gave AI agents something they never had "a browser". Your agent can now see your app, find the problem, and fix it without asking you. This along with GPT-5.4 mini & nano (2 small models), TanStack Start going 5x faster, why you should ban useEffect, and more. Let's dive in. 🍿 Our Weekly Snack: Your AI agent can finally see what your users see (Next.js 16.2 is here) Next.js 16.2 dropped yesterday (deep dive here) and it just gave AI agents a browser. It's...

next.js proxy

Hey Reader, Middleware got renamed to Proxy in Next.js 16. Same functionality. Better name. What is Proxy? Every request to your app has to go somewhere - a page, an API route, a file. Proxy gets to look at it first and decide what happens: send the user somewhere else, serve different content silently, or just let it through as-is. Think of it as a traffic controller 🚦 sitting in front of your routes. So, why you should stop putting auth in Proxy? It feels like the perfect place but it...

You’re Suspending the Wrong Component

Hey Reader, There are thousands of you going through Modern Full Stack Next.js Course so wanted to be grateful here for your support. Just as a thank you, there is something big dropping for you. It will only last 24 hours ⏰ so keep an eye out for my email next week. Let's dive in! PRESENTED BY CLERK Instead of your coding agent guessing how auth works, you can now install specialized Clerk knowledge directly into it. Introducing Clerk Skills One simple command $ npx skills add clerk/skills...