Laying the Foundation: Bootstrapping a New Frontend Ecosystem

Introduction

In this post, I'll delve into my initial task: bootstrapping the application with a robust frontend ecosystem. Given the challenges of the legacy system, my goal was to establish a more efficient and maintainable development environment.

The Legacy Landscape

The legacy system, built on Angular 1.x, suffered from several critical issues:

• Inflexible component library: The existing component library, xLib, was difficult to modify or extend.
• Lack of API contracts: Frontend and backend communication was inconsistent and error-prone.
• Inconsistent design: The absence of design standards led to a fragmented and visually unappealing interface.
• Lack of typesafety: Untyped data access made it difficult to prevent errors and ensure data integrity.
• Limited design patterns: The development team was constrained by legacy design decisions.
• Absence of testing: No unit or end-to-end tests were in place.

A Process-Oriented Approach

To address these challenges, we adopted a process-oriented approach:

• Standardized design: We implemented a design system with predefined templates to ensure consistency.
• Component-based development: We created a reusable component library to streamline development.
• Turbo monorepo: We used a monorepo structure to manage our project and its dependencies.
• Next.js and TypeScript: We chose Next.js for its server-side rendering capabilities and TypeScript for strong typing.
• Additional libraries: We selected Tanstack Query for data fetching, React Hook Form for form handling, Zod for schema validation, and Voided for error handling.

Building a Reusable Component Library

Rather than building the entire component library at once, I focused on creating a complete profile screen with mock data. This approach allowed me to identify the essential components needed for the application.

Bootstrapping the Application

To provide a solid foundation for future development, I bootstrapped the application using a Turbo monorepo. This structure allowed us to organize our code into separate packages, including the component library and the main application.

Conclusion

By carefully considering the legacy system's limitations and adopting a process-oriented approach, we were able to establish a more efficient and maintainable frontend ecosystem. In the next post, I'll discuss the reasons behind our choice of Next.js and other key libraries.