Container Queries

Cross-platform development is the practice of building applications that run on multiple operating systems (iOS, Android, web, desktop) from a single codebase. Frameworks like React Native, Flutter, and Kotlin Multiplatform each take different approaches — from shared UI rendering to shared business logic with native UI. The key trade-off is between code reuse efficiency and the ability to deliver platform-native experiences that feel right on each device.

Auto-scaling is the ability of a system to automatically adjust the number of running instances or allocated resources based on current demand. When traffic spikes, new instances are provisioned; when demand drops, excess resources are released to save costs. Cloud platforms like AWS, GCP, and Azure offer auto-scaling groups with configurable policies based on CPU usage, request count, queue depth, or custom metrics.

Blue-green deployment is a release strategy that maintains two identical production environments — "blue" (current) and "green" (new version). Traffic is switched from blue to green only after the new version passes all health checks, enabling zero-downtime releases. If issues are detected, traffic can be instantly routed back to the blue environment, making rollbacks trivial and fully automated.

CSS Modules are CSS files where all class names are locally scoped by default, meaning they're automatically transformed into unique identifiers at build time to prevent naming collisions. You import them into your JavaScript as an object and reference classes like `styles.button` instead of plain strings. This approach is natively supported by bundlers like Webpack, Vite, and Next.js, offering style isolation without the runtime overhead of CSS-in-JS.

CSS Custom Properties (also called CSS Variables) let you define reusable values with `--my-variable` syntax and reference them anywhere using `var(--my-variable)`. Unlike preprocessor variables in Sass or Less, they are live in the browser, cascade through the DOM, and can be updated dynamically with JavaScript. They're essential for theming systems, dark mode implementations, and maintaining consistent design tokens across large stylesheets.

React Server Components (RSC) are components that render exclusively on the server and send only their HTML output to the client, with zero JavaScript bundle impact. They can directly access databases, file systems, and backend services without API endpoints. Combined with Client Components (marked with `'use client'`), RSC enables a hybrid architecture where interactive parts ship JavaScript while static or data-heavy parts remain server-only. Next.js App Router uses RSC as its default component model.