Frontend notes on React, TypeScript, and the web
- Which render does useEffectEvent read its latest values from?
useEffectEvent reads the latest values while keeping a subscription alive. A reproduction and the React source show why it reads a different value from a ref during an uncommitted render.
- I Told AI "Just Build It" Instead of "Give Me Ideas"
Asking AI for creative ideas kept falling short across models. When I gave it three months of my logs and asked it to build something on its own, I got a tool I use every day. The difference was giving it evidence first and judging the result.
- If AI Can Do It All, What Can I Add?
If AI writes the code, what is my role? Looking back at development work and a one-off demo helped me explore what I need to understand and what I can contribute.
- How I turned bug reports into reproducible links
A case study of replacing written account and screen directions with URL state in a QA workflow, including why I ruled out localStorage, how I split responsibilities with TanStack Query, and what I tested.
- Does a global AGENTS.md really eat into the project-doc budget?
I understood project_doc_max_bytes to apply to the combined size of global and project documents, and wrote the same thing in my wiki. Measuring the model-visible prompt with codex debug prompt-input produced a different result. This post traces how I varied the limit, identified its scope, and retested the finding after the files changed.
- Why I separated data processing and UI responsibilities from React Query custom hooks
Server response mapping, error handling, cache synchronization, and UI feedback had become mixed inside custom hooks. This post explains how I reassigned them to React-independent data functions, query and mutation options, and components.