A Proactive Approach to Platform Stability

The Challenge

During a front-end audit, I identified critical anti-patterns contributing to production instability. The data layer was a significant problem—when combined with backend issues, a failed API call made the platform unusable for an enterprise client, triggering a P1 incident.

I documented every issue in a comprehensive Jira epic and advocated for prioritization. The audit revealed widespread problems: useEffect fetches on every render, zero caching, no API contracts and no loading states.

The Solution

I architected a standardized data layer built on three foundations: an OpenAPI-generated client for type safety, React Query for declarative caching, and composable Suspense boundaries for resilient error recovery. The goal: make the platform resilient by default where failed requests can’t cascade into P1 incidents.

Architecture Comparison

The transformation from fragile to resilient:

graph TD
A[User Visits Dashboard] --> B[Component Mounts]
B --> C[Fetch All Data at Once]
C --> D{All API Calls Succeed?}
D -->|Yes| E[✓ Page Renders]
D -->|No| F[Page Unusable]
F --> G[P1 Incident]

graph TD
A[User Visits Dashboard] --> B[Page Loads]
B --> C[Each Section Loads Independently]

C --> C1{Cached?}
C1 -->|Yes| C2[✓ Instant Render]
C1 -->|No| C3[Show Skeleton Loader]
C3 --> C4{API Call}
C4 -->|Success| C5[✓ Render Section]
C4 -->|Fail| C6[Show Error + Retry]
C6 --> C7[Rest of Page Still Works]

The Transformation

	// Fetch on every render, no caching, no types
function Dashboard() {
  const [devices, setDevices] = useState([]);
  const [loading, setLoading] = useState(true);

  useEffect(() => {
    fetch('/api/devices')
      .then(res => res.json())
      .then(data => setDevices(data)); // What shape is data?
  }, []); // Refetches on every render

  if (loading) return null; // No loading state

  // One failure = entire page unusable
  return <DeviceList devices={devices} />;
}

	// OpenAPI-generated client with full type safety
import { api } from '@/lib/api-client';

function Dashboard() {
  return (
    <div className="space-y-4">
      <SuspenseSection
        fallback={<DeviceListSkeleton />}
        errorFallback={<ErrorRetry section="devices" />}
      >
        <DeviceSection />
      </SuspenseSection>
    </div>
  );
}

function DeviceSection() {
  const { data } = api.devices.list.useSuspenseQuery();
  return <DeviceList devices={data} />; // Fully typed
}

Impact

Team velocity: Engineers ship complex features without data-layer fear. TypeScript catches API mismatches at compile time, and Suspense boundaries ensure one failed request doesn’t break entire pages. React Query eliminated 70% of redundant API requests, making the platform feel significantly faster.

Business outcomes: Zero P1 incidents from failed API calls since implementation. Platform reliability improved dramatically, support tickets reduced as users recovered from errors themselves.

Engineers now build multi-section dashboards without fear, knowing one failed request won’t bring down the entire page.