Web Directions Year round learning for product, design and engineering professionals

How to keep velocity while reducing risk: BFFs, capability boundaries, feature flags, and evidence‑driven rollouts.

The hardest part of modern front‑end isn’t the framework—it’s the shape of the system. As AI‑assisted workflows arrive, we need architecture that absorbs change without multiplying risk.

Here are some of the related topics we’ll be focusing on at our Developer Summit.

Four patterns worth standardising

1. Backend‑for‑Frontend (BFF) as a product boundary
   A BFF lets your UI teams ship independently while insulating them from backend churn. Keep it boring: stable contracts, coarse endpoints, and caching close to the user.
2. Capability‑based boundaries
   Instead of one “monolith front‑end,” partition along capabilities (auth, content, checkout, account). Each capability owns UI, API contracts, and release cadence. It aligns with how teams actually work.
3. Feature flags with observability
   Flags are not only for rollouts; they’re for evidence. Instrument every flag with the metrics that would justify keeping it on. Set a sunset date when you create it.
4. Resilience first
   Offline by design (Service Workers + OPFS), graceful degradation for network flakiness, and pragmatic performance budgets. These are insurance policies for AI‑augmented apps that may do more client‑side work.

What changes with AI in the loop?

• Specification over code becomes a daily reality. Agents implement; humans specify and review. Your boundaries and contracts matter more than ever.
• Security & privacy shift left. Clearly define which data agents can touch and how context is passed (MCP, signed URLs, ephemeral tokens).

What you’ll learn at Developer Summit

• When BFFs reduce risk—and when they’re ceremony.
• Operating feature flags as part of system design, not just release engineering.
• Building resilient clients that handle offline AI and heavy local computation.

Register for Web Directions Developer Summit and join us November 19-20 in Sydney (or streaming online) to explore these transformations with the people driving them.