Home/2026
Archive

Year 2026

1,048 articles published in 2026.

SRE & Ops — ZGateway: Learnings from Putting a Proxy in Front of ZippyDB

ZGateway: Learnings from Putting a Proxy in Front of ZippyDB

We’re introducing ZGateway, the proxy we are using to unify traffic through ZippyDB, Meta’s most widely-used key value store. As a bonus, it also enables admission control, load balancing, cross-region resilience, and richer operations. ZippyDB is the most widely used key value store at Meta, backing product metadata, counters, and configuration, and can serve billions […]

CWChris Wiltz·September 3, 2026SRE & Ops
AI & ML — An Organizational Second Brain: Building an AI That Learns From Experts

An Organizational Second Brain: Building an AI That Learns From Experts

We’ve built an AI agent that acts as a secondary expert for a given domain, making deep specialist knowledge readily available and preserved for anyone in an organization to access, share, and build upon. This is not a typical domain-specific agent. Its novelty comes from integrating two layers: A structured, auditable knowledge architecture separates what […]

CWChris Wiltz·September 2, 2026AI & ML
Architecture — Compute that takes any shape

Compute that takes any shape

Fluid is Vercel's compute architecture. One system that assembles the right machine for any workload, builds, functions, or sandboxes, and reshapes it on demand.

VVercel·September 1, 2026Architecture
Security — Introducing Adaptive Intelligence: undermining the economics of every bot attack

Introducing Adaptive Intelligence: undermining the economics of every bot attack

Bot operators have historically had the economic advantage, bypassing static, deterministic detection rules with cheap proxies and retooling. Cloudflare's new Adaptive Intelligence engine flips this dynamic by autonomously learning from the meta-signals of live traffic and deploying disposable rules, making automated attacks too expensive to sustain.

CPChris PopeChris Pope·August 31, 2026Security
Engineering — You Can't "Vibe Code" Love

You Can't "Vibe Code" Love

About a year ago, I was offered a presentation slot at the WeAreDevelopers World Congress in Berlin. I rarely take speaking engagements, especially international ones, but this one arrived at just the right time, the right place, and with the right person – I said yes, on the contingency that Ben Dumke-von der Ehe joins me in the presentation. Ben is an early community hire at Stack Overflow who l

JAJeff AtwoodJeff Atwood·August 31, 2026Engineering
Frontend — Let’s Use the Emergent CSS random() Function in all the Browsers

Let’s Use the Emergent CSS random() Function in all the Browsers

The journey to create a polyfill for the upcoming CSS random() function that works in all browsers. Let’s Use the Emergent CSS random() Function in all the Browsers originally handwritten and published with love on CSS-Tricks . You should really get the newsletter as well.

LMLee MeyerLee Meyer·August 31, 2026Frontend
Frontend — What’s !important #18: , Syntax ::highlight()ing, named-feature(), and More

What’s !important #18: , Syntax ::highlight()ing, named-feature(), and More

Well, that’s a wrap. No, not a flex-wrap, but rather today marks a new day, week, month, season, aaaand new edition of What’s important (#18), bringing you the best content that developers have produced over the last couple of weeks or so. What’s !important #18: <geolocation>, Syntax ::highlight()ing, named-feature(), and More originally handwritten and published with love on CSS-Tricks . You shou

DSDaniel SchwarzDaniel Schwarz·August 31, 2026Frontend
Frontend — Creating Web Widgets Using the Document Picture-in-Picture API

Creating Web Widgets Using the Document Picture-in-Picture API

The general idea is that we create a Document Picture-in-Picture window (DPIP window), and then we put HTML, CSS, and JavaScript into it. Creating Web Widgets Using the Document Picture-in-Picture API originally handwritten and published with love on CSS-Tricks . You should really get the newsletter as well.

DSDaniel SchwarzDaniel Schwarz·August 27, 2026Frontend
AI & ML — Making Your Data Ready for Agentic AI

Making Your Data Ready for Agentic AI

For thirty years we built data systems for human analysts, who supply the context, judgment, and skepticism to work around data that's incomplete or wrong. Autonomous agents supply none of that. They act on whatever they're handed, confidently. For data to be AI-ready we need to build a series of layers: a data foundation that makes data trusted, a context layer to apply proper meaning, and an acc

PSPramod Sadalage and Prem Chandrasekaran·August 27, 2026AI & ML
Frontend — animation-trigger

animation-trigger

The CSS animation-trigger property allows you to delay the start of a CSS animation until a specific trigger occurs. animation-trigger originally handwritten and published with love on CSS-Tricks . You should really get the newsletter as well.

SMSaleh MubasharSaleh Mubashar·August 26, 2026Frontend
Design & UX — Rethinking Data Visualisation: A UX Approach To Dashboards That Actually Drives Decisions — Smashing Magazine

Rethinking Data Visualisation: A UX Approach To Dashboards That Actually Drives Decisions — Smashing Magazine

Data visualisation sits at the intersection of two disciplines that rarely talk to each other: data and design. Meriem Benhabiles explores what changes when you bring structured UX thinking to dashboards and data presentations, from the questions you ask before opening any tool to the decisions that determine whether an insight actually lands.

MBMeriem BenhabilesMeriem Benhabiles·August 26, 2026Design & UX
AI & ML — The Agent Stack

The Agent Stack

Build production-grade AI agents with Vercel's Agent Stack. Connect to any model, run durable multi-step workflows, and securely link agents to your data and tools. Every building block you need, in one place.

VVercel·August 26, 2026AI & ML
Frontend — MicroLighter: Syntax Highlighter

MicroLighter: Syntax Highlighter

Syntax highlighting for code blocks without the complicated markup, spans, classes, and bloated JavaScript, courtesy of Uncle Dave. MicroLighter: Syntax Highlighter originally handwritten and published with love on CSS-Tricks . You should really get the newsletter as well.

GGGeoff GrahamGeoff Graham·August 25, 2026Frontend
Design & UX — Why Your Website Should Never Stop Changing — Smashing Magazine

Why Your Website Should Never Stop Changing — Smashing Magazine

Every website peaks on launch day and slowly drifts from there, not because it breaks, but because nobody has time to keep it current. Autonomous websites, continuously optimized by agents after launch, aim to change that. Pierre Burgy shares what they learned building for full website autonomy and the deeper design problem they uncovered along the way.

PBPierre BurgyPierre Burgy·August 25, 2026Design & UX
Frontend — WordPress PHP-Only Block Registration

WordPress PHP-Only Block Registration

Seven and half years after blocks arrived in Core, WordPress introduces a way to build blocks without React annd build pipelines. All you need is PHP. WordPress PHP-Only Block Registration originally handwritten and published with love on CSS-Tricks . You should really get the newsletter as well.

FKFränk KleinFränk Klein·August 24, 2026Frontend
SRE & Ops — MetaRoCE: A New RDMA Transport Built for AI-Scale Ethernet

MetaRoCE: A New RDMA Transport Built for AI-Scale Ethernet

Training and serving frontier AI models depends on fast, reliable networks that move data between GPUs without wasting compute cycles. To meet this challenge at scale, Meta designed MetaRoCE – a clean-sheet RDMA transport protocol purpose-built for AI workloads on commodity Ethernet. We’re releasing the MetaRoCE specification, a reference software implementation and a compliance test […]

CWChris Wiltz·August 24, 2026SRE & Ops
SRE & Ops — MTIA 300: Meta’s First Training Chip with Built-in NICs and Communication-Offloading Engines

MTIA 300: Meta’s First Training Chip with Built-in NICs and Communication-Offloading Engines

MTIA 300 is the first of Meta’s family of in-house training and inference accelerators optimized for training ranking and recommendation models. We’re sharing how MTIA 300’s built-in NIC chiplets allow it to meet the communication needs associated with training recommendation models with superior performance over general-purpose GPUs. By co-designing MTIA’s communication library, HCCL, alongside t

CWChris Wiltz·August 24, 2026SRE & Ops
AI & ML — Say it once: introducing Bot Preference Sync

Say it once: introducing Bot Preference Sync

Cloudflare's new Bot Preference Sync automatically aligns your robots.txt file with your AI bot policies for Search, Agent, and Training. Easily manage which bots access your content without maintaining static files.

JHJin Hee LeeJin Hee Lee·August 21, 2026AI & ML
Frontend — Resolved: CSS Class Prefix Selector

Resolved: CSS Class Prefix Selector

A newly resolved proposal would allow us to select classes that are a prefix for variations with a wildcard, like .prefix-* . Resolved: CSS Class Prefix Selector originally handwritten and published with love on CSS-Tricks . You should really get the newsletter as well.

GGGeoff GrahamGeoff Graham·August 21, 2026Frontend
Performance — Five monetization trends from global pricing leaders

Five monetization trends from global pricing leaders

As AI transforms software economics, the standard revenue playbook is breaking down. Learn how leaders around the world are preparing for agent buyers, updating processes for faster pricing iteration, and building more flexible infrastructure.

SWScott WoodyScott Woody·August 20, 2026Performance
Security — A revisit of remote Spectre attacks on Cloudflare Workers

A revisit of remote Spectre attacks on Cloudflare Workers

In 2024 and 2025, we reassessed remote Spectre attacks on our Workers infrastructure. We share details about the new attack primitives like Spectre gadgets, remote timers, achieving co-location and how new defenses further harden Cloudflare Workers.

MAMartin, Albert PedersenMartin, Albert Pedersen·August 19, 2026Security
Frontend — CSS Navigation Matching, Early Days

CSS Navigation Matching, Early Days

Apply a style when someone navigates from one specific page to another. The idea being it'd make the sources for cross-document view transitions declarative in CSS rather than managing that stuff in JavaScript. CSS Navigation Matching, Early Days originally handwritten and published with love on CSS-Tricks . You should really get the newsletter as well.

GGGeoff GrahamGeoff Graham·August 19, 2026Frontend
Frontend — WordPress.com Student Plan

WordPress.com Student Plan

As someone who teaches beginning web development, I find that building a WordPress site makes for a great final project. Hosting those projects has always been a roadblock though. WordPress.com Student Plan originally handwritten and published with love on CSS-Tricks . You should really get the newsletter as well.

GGGeoff GrahamGeoff Graham·August 19, 2026Frontend
Career & Teams — Practitioner Voice

Practitioner Voice

Effective writing from a practitioner is a style distinct from academic writing or thought-leadership content. It relies on authority from experience (not credentials), naming tensions but letting them live, keeping the author in the writing, and the expectation that readers recognize the pattern from their own experience.

JHJim Highsmith·August 19, 2026Career & Teams