Frontend best practices
I've shipped features fast only to struggle understanding my own code months later. Here's what I've learned about building frontend applications you'll actually enjoy maintaining.
Building frontend applications can get messy fast. I've been there - shipping features quickly only to come back months later and struggle to understand my own code. Over the years, I've learned that investing time in good practices upfront saves you hours (sometimes days) of debugging and refactoring later.
Let me share what's worked for me when building scalable frontend applications.
Why Code Quality Actually Matters
Early in my career, I thought "good enough" was, well, good enough. Ship it and move on, right? Wrong. I learned this the hard way when I had to debug a production issue in code I'd written six months earlier. Without consistent formatting, proper linting, or tests, it took me hours to figure out what should have been a simple fix.
That's when I started taking code quality seriously.
ESLint - Your First Line of Defense
ESLint catches issues before they become problems. I configure it to auto-fix on save in VS Code, which means I'm constantly improving code quality without even thinking about it. For Vue and Nuxt projects, the official ESLint config is solid out of the box.
Prettier - End the Formatting Debates
Honestly, Prettier is one of my favourite tools. No more bikeshedding about tabs vs spaces or where brackets should go. Configure it once, forget about it, and let it handle the formatting. Your team will thank you.
Unit Testing - Trust Your Changes
I'll admit it - I used to skip writing tests. "I'll add them later," I'd tell myself. Later never came. Now I use Vitest and Vue Testing Library, and honestly, tests have saved my bacon more times than I can count. There's something satisfying about refactoring with confidence, knowing your tests will catch any breaking changes.
TypeScript - Less Guessing, More Building
TypeScript felt like extra work at first. Why add types when JavaScript works fine? But after using it on a few projects, I can't imagine going back. The TypeScript Handbook is excellent if you're just getting started. The autocomplete alone is worth it, never mind catching bugs before runtime.
For quick experimentation, I use the TS Playground. And if you really want to level up your TypeScript game, check out Total TypeScript - they have fantastic free workshops on GitHub.
Some TypeScript packages I use in nearly every project:
- tsx - The easiest way to run TypeScript in Node.js without fussing with build configs
- vue-tsc - Type-checking for Vue components, perfect for CI pipelines
Visual Regression Testing - Catch the Invisible Bugs
Breaking the UI without realizing it is embarrassing. Tools like Chromatic and Percy take screenshots of your components and flag visual changes. It's caught more accidental CSS changes than I'd like to admit.
Styling That Doesn't Fight You
Global CSS is a nightmare in large applications. I learned this while working on a codebase where changing one class would break styles in completely unrelated components. Never again.
Scoped Styles - Keep Things Isolated
Vue's scoped CSS is brilliant. Add <style scoped> to your component and your styles stay contained. No more hunting down why your button styles are affecting the navigation bar.
CSS Modules are another great option, especially in React projects. They solve the same problem - keeping your styles local and predictable.
Atomic CSS - Less CSS, More Productivity
I was skeptical about utility-first CSS at first. Classes like p-4 bg-blue-500 felt wrong. But after using Tailwind CSS on a project, I get it. You write less CSS, maintain less CSS, and build UI faster. The utilities are self-documenting, and you stop context-switching between files.
Brad Frost's Atomic Web Design methodology pairs really well with this approach - it's all about building reusable, composable pieces.
Storybook - Develop Components in Isolation
Storybook changed how I build components. Instead of spinning up the entire application to work on a button, I build it in isolation. This makes it easier to test different states, document props, and catch edge cases.
The visual regression testing integration with Chromatic or Percy is the cherry on top. You get a living component library that's always up to date with your code.
If you're building a design system, check out their guide on distributing UI across an organization. It's a solid walkthrough of packaging and sharing components across multiple apps.
Automation and CI/CD - Let Robots Do the Boring Stuff
Manual testing before every deploy gets old fast. Now I automate linting, testing, and builds in GitHub Actions. If something breaks, I know before it hits production. Setting this up takes an afternoon, but it pays dividends.
Documentation - Future You Will Thank Present You
I used to think documentation was a waste of time. Then I joined a project with zero docs and spent weeks figuring out how everything worked. Now I document as I go - component props, complex logic, setup instructions. Even just a README with "how to run this" is better than nothing.
Wrapping Up
You don't need to implement everything at once. Pick one or two practices that solve your biggest pain points and start there. For me, it was ESLint and Prettier first, then tests, then TypeScript. Each one made my workflow smoother.
If you're interested in building components the right way, check out my article on component-driven development. It covers how to structure applications around reusable, isolated components.
The goal isn't perfection - it's writing code you'll actually enjoy maintaining six months from now.
Related
If you're curious how I use AI to maintain code quality, check out how I use Claude Code in my development workflow.