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Frontend Architecture

37 articles, newest first.

Rendering strategy, state, performance budgets, and the structural decisions that quietly decide how a frontend ages.

A dark Egnworks banner representing raw data flowing through a stream and compressing on the way.

Frontend Architecture

Compressing Data Without a Library

A deep technical guide to the Compression Streams API, covering why compression always meant a bundled library before, CompressionStream and DecompressionStream as transform streams, the available formats, converting a compressed stream to a concrete value, why compression happens in chunks, a practical OPFS example, and browser support.

Jacob Val

A dark Egnworks banner representing one message reaching several open browser tabs at once.

Frontend Architecture

Talking Between Tabs Without a Server

A deep technical guide to the Broadcast Channel API, covering why localStorage became an unofficial messaging channel before this existed, creating and using a channel, what can be sent through structured clone, why the sender never hears its own message, scope and closing, a logout example, and how it contrasts with the Web Locks API.

Jacob Val

A dark Egnworks banner representing one browser tab holding a lock while others wait in queue.

Frontend Architecture

Coordinating Browser Tabs With Web Locks

A deep technical guide to the Web Locks API, covering why multiple tabs have always needed coordination, requesting a lock with automatic release, exclusive versus shared mode, ifAvailable and signal options, introspecting locks with query, a leader election example, pairing locks with the Origin Private File System, and browser support.

Jacob Val

A dark Egnworks banner representing multiple independent streams multiplexed over one connection.

Frontend Architecture

Real Time Data Without WebSocket Limits

A deep technical guide to WebTransport, covering why WebSocket's single TCP stream causes head of line blocking, how QUIC changes that, bidirectional and unidirectional streams, unreliable datagrams, certificate hashes for local development, a comparison against WebSocket, and browser support.

Jacob Val

A dark Egnworks banner representing tasks queued by priority instead of arrival order.

Frontend Architecture

Giving JavaScript Tasks a Real Priority

A deep technical guide to the Prioritized Task Scheduling API, covering why setTimeout was never a real scheduler, scheduler.postTask and its priority levels, TaskController for changing priority or aborting mid flight, scheduler.yield for breaking up long tasks, how it compares to requestIdleCallback, a practical example, and browser support.

Jacob Val

A dark Egnworks banner representing a worker writing directly into a private per-origin file.

Frontend Architecture

Fast File Storage With the Origin Private File System

A deep technical guide to the Origin Private File System, covering why IndexedDB was never a real file system, getting a handle into the private tree, synchronous access from a worker, reading and writing at a byte offset, exclusive locking, a SQLite in the browser example, and browser support.

Jacob Val