4 posts tagged web

I've been putting a lot of thought into enhancing web applications with robust AI and resilient components. My latest post on ReadNext: AI Content Recommendations for Node JS introduces a handy open-source tool that simplifies generating related content recommendations, which is particularly useful for developers working with React and TypeScript. This tool seamlessly integrates into the CI/CD pipeline, keeping content suggestions up-to-date.

In other posts, I've explored the capabilities of React Server Components (RSC). For instance, my article on Error handling and retry with React Server Components discusses strategies for making these components more resilient. Delving deeper into RSC, Promises across the void: Streaming data with RSC showcases asynchronous data handling, while Decoding React Server Component Payloads breaks down how data is transferred between server and client in Next.js applications. Together, these posts aim to equip developers with practical tools and insights for modern web development.

ReadNext: AI Content Recommendations for Node JS

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Recently I posted about AI Content Recommendations with TypeScript, which concluded by introducing a new NPM package I've been working on called ReadNext. This post is dedicated to ReadNext, and will go into more detail about how to use ReadNext in Node JS, React, and other JavaScript projects.

What it is

ReadNext is a Node JS package that uses AI to generate content recommendations. It's designed to be easy to use, and can be integrated into any Node JS project with just a few lines of code. It is built on top of LangChain, and delegates to an LLM of your choice for summarizing your content to generate recommendations. It runs locally, does not require you to deploy anything, and has broad support for a variety of content types and LLM providers.

ReadNext is not an AI itself, nor does it want your money, your data or your soul. It's just a library that makes it easy to find related content for developers who use JavaScript as their daily driver. It's best used at build time, and can be integrated into your CI/CD pipeline to generate recommendations for your content as part of your build process.

How to use it

Get started in the normal way:

npm install read-next

Configure a ReadNext instance:

import { ReadNext } from 'read-next'

const readNext = await ReadNext.create({
  // optional, defaults to a temp directory
  cacheDir: '/path/to/cache'
})

Index your content:

await readNext.index({
  sourceDocuments: [
    {
      pageContent: 'This is an article about React Server Components',
      id: 'rsc'
    },
    {
      pageContent: 'This is an article about React Hooks',
      id: 'hooks'
    },
    //... as many as you like
  ]
})
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Error handling and retry with React Server Components

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React Server Components are a game-changer when it comes to building large web applications without sending megabytes of JavaScript to the client. They allow you to render components on the server and stream them to the client, which can significantly improve the performance of your application.

However, React Server Components can throw errors, just like regular React components. In this article, we'll explore how to handle and recover from errors in React Server Components.

Error boundaries

In React, you can use error boundaries to catch errors that occur during rendering, in lifecycle methods, or in constructors of the whole tree below them. An error boundary is a React component that catches JavaScript errors anywhere in its child component tree and logs those errors, displaying a fallback UI instead of crashing the entire application.

To create an error boundary in React, you need to define a component that implements the componentDidCatch lifecycle method. This method is called whenever an error occurs in the component tree below the error boundary.

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Promises across the void: Streaming data with RSC

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Last week we looked at how React Server Component Payloads work under the covers. Towards the end of that article I mentioned a fascinating thing that you can do with RSC: sending unresolved promises from the server to the client. When I first read that I thought it was a documentation bug, but it's actually quite real (though with some limitations).

Here's a simple example of sending a promise from the server to the client. First, here's our server-rendered component, called SuspensePage in this case:

page.tsx
import { Suspense } from "react";
import Table from "./table";
import { getData } from "./data";

export default function SuspensePage() {
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Server Component</h1>
      <Suspense fallback={<div>Loading...</div>}>
        <Table dataPromise={getData(1000)} />
      </Suspense>
    </div>
  );
}

So we just imported a getData() function that returns a promise that resolves after 1 second. This simulates a call to a database or other asynchronous action. Here's our fake getData() function:

data.tsx
const fakeData = [
  { id: 1, name: 'Alice' },
  { id: 2, name: 'Bob' },
  { id: 3, name: 'Charlie' },
]

export async function getData(delay: number): Promise<any> {
  return new Promise((resolve) => {
    setTimeout(() => {
      resolve(fakeData)
    }, delay)
  })
}
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Decoding React Server Component Payloads

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If you've spent any time playing with React Server Components, you've probably noticed a bunch of stuff like this at the bottom of your web pages:

<script>(self.__next_f=self.__next_f||[]).push([0]);self.__next_f.push([2,null])</script>
<script>self.__next_f.push([1,"1:HL[\"/_next/static/media/c9a5bc6a7c948fb0-s.p.woff2\",\"font\",{\"crossOrigin\":\"\",\"type\":\"font/woff2\"}]\n2:HL[\"/_next/static/css/app/layout.css?v=1719846361489\",\"style\"]\n0:D{\"name\":\"r0\",\"env\":\"Server\"}\n"])</script>
<script>self.__next_f.push([1,"3:I[\"(app-pages-browser)/./node_modules/next/dist/client/components/app-router.js\",[\"app-pages-internals\",\"static/chunks/app-pages-internals.js\"],\"\"]\n5:I[\"(app-pages-browser)/./node_modules/next/dist/client/components/client-page.js\",[\"app-pages-internals\",\"static/chunks/app-pages-internals.js\"],\"ClientPageRoot\"]\n6:I[\"(app-pages-browser)/./app/flight/page.tsx\",[\"app/flight/page\",\"static/chunks/app/flight/page.js\"],\"default\"]\n7:I[\"(app-pages-browser)/./node_modules/next/dist/client/components/layout-router.js\",[\"app-pages-internals\",\"static/chunks/app-pages-internals.js\"],\"\"]\n8:I[\"(app-pages-browser)/./node_modules/next/dist/client/components/render-from-template-context.js\",[\"app-pages-internals\",\"static/chunks/app-pages-internals.js\"],\"\"]\nc:I[\"(app-pages-browser)/./node_modules/next/dist/client/components/error-boundary.js\",[\"app-pages-internals\",\"static/chunks/app-pages-internals.js\"],\"\"]\n4:D{\"name\":\"\",\"env\":\"Server\"}\n9:D{\"name\":\"RootLayout\",\"env\":\"Server\"}\na:D{\"name\":\"NotFound\",\"env\":\"Server\"}\na:[[\"$\",\"title\",null,{\"children\":\"404: This page could not be found.\"}],[\"$\",\"div\",null,{\"style\":{\"fontFamily\":\"system-ui,\\\"Segoe UI\\\",Roboto,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif,\\\"Apple Color Emoji\\\",\\\"Segoe UI Emoji\\\"\",\"height\":\"100vh\",\"textAlign\":\"center\",\"display\":\"flex\",\"flexDirection\":\"column\",\"alignItems\":\"center\",\"justifyContent\":\"center\"},\"children\":[\"$\",\"div\",null,{\"children\":[[\"$\",\"style\",null,{\"dangerouslySetInnerHTML\":{\"__html\":\"body{color:#000;background:#fff;margin:0}.next-error-h1{border-right:1px solid rgba(0,0,0,.3)}@media (prefers-color-scheme:dark){body{color:#fff;background:#000}.next-error-h1{border-right:1px solid rgba(255,255,255,.3)}}\"}}],[\"$\",\"h1\",null,{\"className\":\"next-error-h1\",\"style\":{\"display\":\"inline-block\",\"margin\":\"0 20px 0 0\",\"padding\":\"0 23px 0 0\",\"fontSize\":24,\"fontWeight\":500,\"verticalAlign\":\"top\",\"lineHeight\":\"49px\"},\"children\":\"404\"}],[\"$\",\"div\",null,{\"style\":{\"display\":\"inline-block\"},\"children\":[\"$\",\"h2\",null,{\"style\":{\"fontSize\":14,\"fontWeight\":400,\"lineHeight\":\"49px\",\"margin\":0},\"childr"])</script>
<script>self.__next_f.push([1,"en\":\"This page could not be found.\"}]}]]}]}]]\n9:[\"$\",\"html\",null,{\"lang\":\"en\",\"children\":[\"$\",\"body\",null,{\"className\":\"__className_aaf875\",\"children\":[\"$\",\"$L7\",null,{\"parallelRouterKey\":\"children\",\"segmentPath\":[\"children\"],\"error\":\"$undefined\",\"errorStyles\":\"$undefined\",\"errorScripts\":\"$undefined\",\"template\":[\"$\",\"$L8\",null,{}],\"templateStyles\":\"$undefined\",\"templateScripts\":\"$undefined\",\"notFound\":\"$a\",\"notFoundStyles\":[],\"styles\":null}]}]}]\nb:D{\"name\":\"\",\"env\":\"Server\"}\nd:[]\n0:[[[\"$\",\"link\",\"0\",{\"rel\":\"stylesheet\",\"href\":\"/_next/static/css/app/layout.css?v=1719846361489\",\"precedence\":\"next_static/css/app/layout.css\",\"crossOrigin\":\"$undefined\"}]],[\"$\",\"$L3\",null,{\"buildId\":\"development\",\"assetPrefix\":\"\",\"initialCanonicalUrl\":\"/flight\",\"initialTree\":[\"\",{\"children\":[\"flight\",{\"children\":[\"__PAGE__\",{}]}]},\"$undefined\",\"$undefined\",true],\"initialSeedData\":[\"\",{\"children\":[\"flight\",{\"children\":[\"__PAGE__\",{},[[\"$L4\",[\"$\",\"$L5\",null,{\"props\":{\"params\":{},\"searchParams\":{}},\"Component\":\"$6\"}]],null],null]},[\"$\",\"$L7\",null,{\"parallelRouterKey\":\"children\",\"segmentPath\":[\"children\",\"flight\",\"children\"],\"error\":\"$undefined\",\"errorStyles\":\"$undefined\",\"errorScripts\":\"$undefined\",\"template\":[\"$\",\"$L8\",null,{}],\"templateStyles\":\"$undefined\",\"templateScripts\":\"$undefined\",\"notFound\":\"$undefined\",\"notFoundStyles\":\"$undefined\",\"styles\":null}],null]},[\"$9\",null],null],\"couldBeIntercepted\":false,\"initialHead\":[false,\"$Lb\"],\"globalErrorComponent\":\"$c\",\"missingSlots\":\"$Wd\"}]]\n"])</script>
<script>self.__next_f.push([1,"b:[[\"$\",\"meta\",\"0\",{\"name\":\"viewport\",\"content\":\"width=device-width, initial-scale=1\"}],[\"$\",\"meta\",\"1\",{\"charSet\":\"utf-8\"}],[\"$\",\"title\",\"2\",{\"children\":\"React Server Components Payloads\"}],[\"$\",\"meta\",\"3\",{\"name\":\"description\",\"content\":\"By Ed Spencer - edspencer.net\"}],[\"$\",\"link\",\"4\",{\"rel\":\"icon\",\"href\":\"/favicon.ico\",\"type\":\"image/x-icon\",\"sizes\":\"16x16\"}],[\"$\",\"meta\",\"5\",{\"name\":\"next-size-adjust\"}]]\n4:null\n"])</script>

You may be wondering what this all means. It's not super well documented, and all pretty bleeding-edge. It's not likely to be something you need to worry about in your day-to-day work, but if you're a curious geek like me, read on.

What you're looking at is a bunch of <script> tags automatically injected into the end of the page. The content above is a copy-paste from just about the most basic Next JS application imaginable. It consists of 2 components - a layout.tsx and a page.tsx:

layout.tsx
import type { Metadata } from "next";
import "./globals.css";

export const metadata: Metadata = {
  title: "React Server Components Payloads",
  description: "By Ed Spencer - edspencer.net",
};

export default function RootLayout({
  children,
}: Readonly<{
  children: React.ReactNode;
}>) {
  return (
    <html lang="en">
      <body>{children}</body>
    </html>
  );
}
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