Front-End Fire

Hosted by TJ VanToll, Paige Niedringhaus, Jack Herrington

Technology

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Episodes

158

Latest episode

Aug 2026

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EN-US

About the show

A weekly show that helps you stay up to date on the latest and greatest in the front-end world.

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60 recent

August 10, 2026Episode 15757 min

157: Shai-Hulud Is Back From the Dead

Next.js is back after a quiet stretch with 16.3, promising "instant" navigations, leaner dev servers, better agent tooling, and faster builds. The TanStack crew keeps shipping too — TanStack Table hit v9.0 and TanStack AI is closing in on v1.0 with tool calling, reasoning, code sandboxes, and memory. Then there's the bad news: a new Shai-Hulud variant compromised a major maintainer and infected a pile of key-value storage and caching packages with over a billion combined monthly downloads. Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 1:10 - Next.js 16.3 9:22 - TanStack AI and TanStack Table 9.0 15:55 - Another npm supply chain attack 27:07 - An update on the Deno v. Oracle lawsuit 31:44 - Anthropic announced Claude broke containment too 37:41 - Google Earth has to roll back an AI feature 39:34 - An interesting Sam Altman tweet 46:27 - What's making us happy News Paige: Another day another npm supply chain attack Jack: TanStack AI and TanStack Table 9.0 TJ: Next.js 16.3 Lightning News Not to be outdone by OpenAI, Anthropic announced Claude broke containment too An update on the Deno v Oracle lawsuit Google Earth has to roll back an AI feature An interesting Sam Altman tweet What's Making Us Happy Paige: Ride or Die miniseries Jack: Shin Kamen Rider movie and Vibe Island TJ: OpenAI Shop and Perplexity Supply Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. Join us in our Discord, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube. Front-end Fire website Blue Collar Coder on YouTube Blue Collar Coder on Discord Reach out via email Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

August 3, 2026Episode 1561 hr 1 min

156: The State of CSS Is In

The State of CSS 2026 results are in — Tailwind still rules, AI still can't write decent CSS, and (thanks, listeners!) we made the resources list. CodePen ships its biggest update in years with CodePen 2.0, and a new library called Octane pitches "React's programming model, compiled" — hooks and Suspense with no VDOM and no dependency arrays. Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 3:05 - State of CSS 2026 survey 20:01 - CodePen 2.0 32:55 - Octane JS framework 38:37 - State of Devs survey 2026 39:30 - LinkedIn adds a "Seems like AI slop" button 42:54 - TanStack rebrand, and a new charting library 45:38 - GitHub stacked pull requests 52:13 - Opus 5 54:27 - What's Making Us Happy News Paige: State of CSS 2026 survey Jack: Octane JS framework TJ: CodePen 2.0 Lightning News State of Devs survey 2026 LinkedIn adds a "Seems like AI slop" button GitHub adds stacked pull requests TanStack rebrand & a new charting library Anthropic's Claude Opus 5 model What's Making Us Happy Paige: His & Hers miniseries Jack: The Vampire Lestat miniseries TJ: Orbit Traveling Tractor Water Sprinkler Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. Join us in our Discord, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube. Front-End Fire website Blue Collar Coder on YouTube Blue Collar Coder on Discord Reach out via email Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

July 27, 2026Episode 15557 min

155: OpenAI Breaks Out of its Sandbox

We dig into how Bun went from Zig to Rust in just 11 days with an army of Claude sessions, check in on Kimi K3 — another open-weight Chinese model closing in on the frontier — and unpack the week's wildest story: an OpenAI model that escaped its sandbox and hacked Hugging Face. Just another normal week in AI. Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 3:05 - Kimi K3 10:58 - Rewriting Bun in Rust 20:42 - OpenAI hacks Hugging Face 39:48 - App Store number updates 42:11 - Meta's new app is set to a song about human extinction 46:50 - What's Making Us Happy News Paige: Rewriting Bun in Rust Jack: Kimi K3 TJ: OpenAI hacks Hugging Face Lightning News App Store app numbers are way up; downloads are not Meta launched a new AI optimism ad set to a song about human extinction What's Making Us Happy Paige: The Bear season 5 Jack: The Odyssey movie TJ: Detroit Tigers baseball Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. Join us in our Discord, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube. Front-End Fire website Blue Collar Coder on YouTube Blue Collar Coder on Discord Reach out via email Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

July 21, 2026Episode 1541 hr 3 min

154: How Not to Drown in AI Code Reviews

AI agents can churn out code faster than anyone can review it — so how do you keep from drowning? We don't claim to have all the answers, but we dig into practical ways to make AI-generated code less sloppy and reviews less painful — review tools, code-review skills, and the still-irreplaceable habit of smoke testing a PR yourself. Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 0:26 - How to not drown in code reviews 49:55 - What's Making Us Happy Links Anthropic: Recursive Self Improvement Spotify Engineering: Coding is No Longer the Constraint CodeRabbit Superpowers Amelia Wattenberger: how coding used to be how we thought What's Making Us Happy Paige: Chef's Choice Electric Knife Sharpener Jack: Cooper's Hawks TJ: Acadia National Park Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. Join us in our Discord, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube. Front-End Fire website Blue Collar Coder on YouTube Blue Collar Coder on Discord Reach out via email Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

July 13, 2026Episode 15347 min

153: Vercel Wants Your Entire Stack

Vercel goes all-in on your stack — a Zig-powered Native SDK for building desktop apps, plus Vercel Services to run multiple frameworks as one shared project for monorepo and microservice teams — while VoidZero ships Vite+ in beta to unify the entire frontend toolchain. Plus Safari joins the MCP party and Claude gets a little too chatty in Slack. Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 0:59 - Vercel native 8:22 - Vite+ beta 10:15 - Vercel Services 16:50 - Safari MCP server 19:20 - Claude Tag 27:07 - Museum covers its floor in peanut butter 33:41 - What's Making Us Happy News Paige: Vercel Services Jack: Vercel's native TJ: Vite+ beta Lightning News Safari MCP server Claude Tag Museum covers its floor in peanut butter What's Making Us Happy Paige: Dutton Ranch TV series Jack: Bowling TJ: The World Cup Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. Join us in our Discord, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube. Front-End Fire website Blue Collar Coder on YouTube Blue Collar Coder on Discord Reach out via email Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

July 6, 2026Episode 15254 min

152: The Fable Redemption Arc

Vercel partners with Shopify to rebuild Hydrogen, Anthropic re-releases Fable 5 (plus Sonnet 5) with a beefed-up safety classifier after its government timeout, and Meta open-sources Astryx, its React/StyleX design system Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 3:50 - Vercel and Shopify collab on Hydrogen 13:11 - A Fable 5 update 22:38 - Astryx 33:51 - Cloudflare to change its crawler policy 43:42 - What's Making Us Happy News Paige: Fable 5's ban has been lifted & Sonnet 5 is out too Jack: Vercel and Shopify collab on Hydrogen TJ: Astryx Lightning News Cloudflare to change its crawler policy What's Making Us Happy Paige: Pink Starburst Vodka Lemonade Jack: Goodr sunglasses TJ: Rail Explorers Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. Join us in our Discord, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube. Front-End Fire website Blue Collar Coder on YouTube Blue Collar Coder on Discord Reach out via email Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

June 29, 2026Episode 15139 min

151: Fixing AI’s Microservices Problem

Nx debuts Polygraph, a "synthetic monorepo" that gives AI agents a unified view across microservice boundaries, Deno Desktop takes aim at Electron by compiling web projects into single-binary native apps, and fresh SignalFire hiring data shows engineers holding steady while designers and marketers take the cuts. Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 1:41 - Polygraph meta-harness from the Nx folks 7:49 - Deno Desktop 12:39 - An update on the tech hiring landscape 24:42 - Dan Abramov joins Vercel 27:01 - Claude Code supports mouse clicks now 30:37 - Astro 7 31:08 - What's Making Us Happy News Paige: Polygraph meta-harness from the Nx folks Jack: Deno 2.9 & Deno Desktop TJ: An update on the tech hiring landscape from SignalFire Lightning News Claude Code supports mouse clicks now (i.e. Fullscreen rendering) Dan Abramov joins Vercel Astro 7 What's Making Us Happy Paige: Dungeon Crawler Carl Jack: Bird nests TJ: Shuffleboard Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. Join us in our Discord, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube. Front-End Fire website Blue Collar Coder on YouTube Blue Collar Coder on Discord Reach out via email Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

June 22, 2026Episode 1501 hr 0 min

150: The Government Said “No Fable For You”

Anthropic's new Fable model gets pulled days after launch when the US government restricts foreign access, a fully open-source Chinese model claims Claude Opus-level benchmarks for a fraction of the price, and MDN ships an MCP server to keep AI agents current on the web platform. Plus npm 12's supply-chain crackdown and SpaceX's eye-popping $60B Cursor buy. Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 1:27 - Anthropic released Fable and the US government shut it down 13:51 - GLM-5.2 20:16 - MDN MCP Server 25:42 - npm 12's breaking changes 31:38 - SpaceX bought Cursor for $60B 39:13 - What's Making Us Happy News Paige: MDN MCP Server Jack: GLM-5.2 TJ: Anthropic released Fable and the US shut it down days later Lightning News SpaceX bought Cursor for $60B npm 12 breaking changes What's Making Us Happy Paige: Newest season of Clarkson's Farm and World Cup international fans Jack: Portland Pickles TJ: Claude Cowork Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. Join us in our Discord, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube. Front-End Fire website Blue Collar Coder on YouTube Blue Collar Coder on Discord Reach out via email Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

June 15, 2026Episode 14951 min

149: Rise of the React Foundation

React officially leaves the Meta building to live under the new React Foundation (and the React Compiler gets rewritten in Rust), Apple's WWDC unveils a stacked Safari 27 beta, and Chrome DevTools 149 levels up its AI features. A jam-packed week in front-end news. Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 1:27 - React is now officially owned by the React Foundation 3:07 - React Compiler is now in Rust 5:56 - Safari 27 beta 12:12 - DevTools 149 updates 23:46 - State of CSS survey 2026 27:54 - Fire Starter 32:15 - What's Making Us Happy News Paige: WebKit in Safari 27 beta Jack: React is now owned by the React Foundation & React Compiler is now in Rust TJ: DevTools 149 updates Lightning News State of CSS survey 2026 — go vote for us under your favorite web dev podcasts! Fire Starter Advanced Perceptual Contrast Algorithm What's Making Us Happy Paige: Blocks of focus time Jack: AI is saving money and time — Burn Baby Burn TJ: Sports Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. Join us in our Discord, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube. Front-End Fire website Blue Collar Coder on YouTube Blue Collar Coder on Discord Reach out via email Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

June 8, 2026Episode 14858 min

148: The Bots Have Officially Taken Over

In this episode: people are still writing new programming language, Microsoft is going all "developers, developers, developers" again, and bots are apparently outnumbering humans on the web now. Timestamps: 1:55 - Bot traffic has passed human traffic 5:28 - The Jam programming language 12:04 - Jack at Microsoft Build 29:26 - Cloudflare bought VoidZero 34:46 - Red Hat is the latest victim of Shai Hulud 38:39 - Anthropic wants AI dev to slow down 41:35 - Someone used a Waymo in a robbery 46:47 - What’s making us happy News: Paige - There’s a new programming language called Jam Jack - Microsoft Build coverage TJ - Bot web traffic has passed human web traffic Lightning News: Red Hat is the latest victim of Shai Hulud on npm Anthropic wants AI development to slow down for the public good Police have yet to catch a thief who used a Waymo to steal yoga clothes Cloudflare bought VoidZero What Makes Us Happy this Week: Paige - For All Mankind TV series Jack - Custom Microsoft swag TJ - Claude Desktop Buddy Thanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. You can join us in our Discord channel, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube. Front-end Fire website Blue Collar Coder on YouTube Blue Collar Coder on Discord Reach out via email Tweet at us on X @front_end_fire Follow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast