Episode notes
In this episode npm implements staged publishing, Deno is patrolling your claws, and Vercel has a new agent-first language. Timestamps: 0:58 - npm staged publishing4:52 - Claw Patrol11:00 - zerolang20:18 - Wordpress 7.023:46 - Dr. Axel takes down his blog and books33:31 - What’s making us happyNews: Paige - zerolang, an agent first programming languageJack - Claw PatrolTJ - npm staged publishingLightning News: Wordpress 7.0 and AIDr. Axel takes down his blog and booksWhat Makes Us Happy...
Front-End Fire
by TJ VanToll, Paige Niedringhaus, Jack Herrington · English · Tech & Science
A weekly show that helps you stay up to date on the latest and greatest in the front-end world.
More from Front-End Fire
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E150 · 22 Jun 2026 · 1 hr
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 - Intro1:27 - Anthropic released Fable and the US government shut it down13:51 - GLM-5.220:16 - MDN MCP Server25:42 - npm...
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E149 · 15 Jun 2026 · 52 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 su...
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E148 · 8 Jun 2026 · 59 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 traffic5:28 - The Jam programming language12:04 - Jack at Microsoft Build29:26 - Cloudflare bought VoidZero34:46 - Red Hat is the latest victim of Shai Hulud38:39 - Anthropic wants AI dev to slow down41:35 - Someone used a Waymo in a robbery46:47 - What’...
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E146 · 25 May 2026 · 52 min
146: Humans vs AI—Fight!
On this episode: Rust has another convert, npm takes another stab at stopping the hackers, and Jack had a coding battle against robots. Timestamps: 1:00 - Bun switches to Rust6:45 - Jack’s battle against AI on Greenfield Games16:01 - npm RFC to block install scripts22:10 - State of Web Dev AI survey results37:10 - Mark Erikson joins the AI revolution41:45 - What’s making us happyNews: Paige - Bun, but in RustJack - Jason Lengstorf’s Greenfield Games TV showTJ - npm RFC to block install script...
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E145 · 18 May 2026 · 53 min
145: AI Layoffs Will Continue Until Morale Improves
In this episode: An IDE written in Rust hits 1.0; more vulnerabilities, this time in TanStack and Next.js; and the AI layoffs continue—we’ll discuss whether you should be worried. Timestamps: 0:46 - Alternative editor Zed hits 1.010:48 - AI layoffs24:12 - TanStack’s CI pipeline was compromised30:01 - Another Next.js vulnerability31:46 - Tailwind 4.3 adds new scrollbar utilities35:03 - Fire Starter: The new install element41:22 - What’s making us happyNews: Paige - Alternative editor Zed hits ...
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E144 · 11 May 2026 · 58 min
144: Did Tanner Just Replace React?
In this episode, we look at whether “founding sponsor” is becoming the new AI acqui-hire, Tanner building a possible React replacement, and how Claude could get faster thanks to a new deal with SpaceX. Timestamps: 0:58 - Tanner builds Redact8:14 - Anthropic makes a deal with SpaceX19:03 - Warp is now open source29:58 - Node 26 is out32:07 - ChatGPT is obsessed with goblins42:21 - What’s making us happy News: Paige - Warp is open source and OpenAI is its founding sponsorJack - Projecting Re...
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E164 · 5 Oct 2026 · 53 minNew
164: Developers Are Tired of This Sh*t
The State of Devs 2026 survey results are in, and... they’re not great. We discuss. We also dig into a huge week of 1.0 releases (EmDash, Vinext, and Vite+), OpenAI's Dev Day, and more! Timestamps 0:00 - Intro1:12 - State of Devs 2026 survey28:26 - EmDash 1.030:37 - Vinext 1.032:46 - Vite+ 1.035:03 - OpenAI Dev Day40:55 - Agent safety42:38 - element46:15 - What's making us happyNews All: State of Devs 2026 survey results are inLightning News Vite+ 1.0EmDash 1.0Vinext 1.0<mode...
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E163 · 28 Sep 2026 · 51 min
163: Do Frameworks Still Matter Anymore?
DHH took the Rails World stage to announce that he and Basecamp are no longer writing code by hand, wouldn't necessarily recommend Rails for a new app, and are going all in on native. That kicks off this week's big question: in an era of agentic coding, do frameworks still matter? We also dig into Safari 27's WebKit release, which is packed with a Safari MCP for agents, customizable selects, the HTML model element, and a pile of CSS improvements. In Lightning News, GitHub Copilot's runtime mo...
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E162 · 21 Sep 2026 · 56 min
162: Shopify Breaks Up with React Native
The React core team just shipped 19.3 with view transitions, fragment refs, and Context support in server components. A startup called TypeSafe AI is making waves with Jev, a fast, cheap "System One" model built for structured decisions instead of full LLM reasoning. And Shopify is walking away from React Native after six years, heading back to native Swift and Kotlin. We also cover Matt Mullenweg's whirlwind week at Automattic and how white hat hackers used Claude to ethically hack OpenAI. T...
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E161 · 14 Sep 2026 · 44 min
161: Tailwind Has a New Home
There are finally some real-world consequences for the Shai-Hulud npm attacks: Australian Federal Police and the FBI arrested two men behind TeamPCP, a group that's been running supply chain attacks using npm since last year. Meanwhile, the open source acquihire train rolls on as Shopify buys Tailwind CSS. In Lightning News the WordPress/WP Engine saga returns as Matt Mullenweg is ousted as Automattic CEO, an Anthropic researcher quits with a warning that AI could kill us all inside a decade,...
