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Welcome to Next in Dev

What’s up, everyone? Welcome to Next in Dev. In this issue, I’ll discuss exciting new updates from Payload and Railway and more.

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Payload CMS

I had a good time trying to get the new MCP server plugin working. If you want to see the live stream, you can find it here. I'm looking forward to diving back into it and more soon!

The Payload CMS team released version 3.61.1 (bug fixes) and version 3.62.

Version 3.61.1 contained bug fixes and documentation updates. The team released it as a quick follow up to 3.60. The primary bug fix appears to be that the UI now asks before closing a document drawer that's been edited.

Version 3.62 has some exciting features. Here they are in quick succession:

You can now edit the access controls for the queue and cancel operations.
Each date field can now have their own timezone settings. That means different date fields can support their own list of timezones and default values.
With this new change, you can enforce one timezone by adding one timezone in the supportedTimezones array and setting it as the default.
You can set where you want toasts to be positioned on the screen. You can put the toast in any of the corners or top or bottom-center.

The team has added KV storage adapters. The Payload team is setting the stage for realtime and new caching processes. You can enable it by setting the new kv property and initializing a database, in-memory, or redis adapter.

I'm excited for the new features this will unlock.

Recent video:

I always enjoy making videos like this! Check out everything you need to know about TypeScript in 90 seconds.

Payload CMS tip of the week

You can use this command to update your Payload CMS project.

pnpx create-payload-app

This checks if you have Payload installed. If you do, it will bump all dependencies to the most recent version. If you want to choose a specific version to change to, you'll need to set that in your package.json.

Figma

Schema by Figma was this week. They introduced some new design changes—things like extended collections, new slots, and a way to audit designs. The team also spoke a lot about updates coming to variables.

The Figma team also announced that they're expanding the MCP server to their Starter plan this week. This isn't a new feature, but it's rolling out to a broader audience. Also on the code side of Figma is Code Connect. This improves the connection between source files and example code.

The last things worth calling out are the ability to use npm packages and the Figma Design library with Figma Make

Next.js and Shadcn

Next.js 16.0.1 is the newest version released by the Next.js team. This version fixes type issues in the Next markdown package. It also upgrades the React version, updates documentation, and adjusts Turbopack.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare released a proposal for a registry of approved bots and agents. This is currently in theory and there's not anything concrete yet. It's a worthy goal, though.

AI news

Is this AI news section helpful?

I want to provide excellent content for you, which means I don't want to waste any time on content that's not useful.

OpenAI released a preview of their safety classification tasks. OpenAI continues to face scrutiny over their handling of sensitive conversations, so I guess this is a step in the right direction. Primarily it seems like developers will be using this model when they use ChatGPT as their chat feature on their sites. This model allows the developers to set the safeguards themselves.

Microsoft and OpenAI released a PR statement talking about Microsoft's new investment into OpenAI. There are some exclusivity clauses included in the deal, so it's not all free money for OpenAI. It's wild how much money Microsoft has poured into OpenAI.

Cursor released a few new features worth calling out. The first is the ability to use speech-to-text with Cursor with a new built-in tool. You don't need another platform to speak to your favorite AI IDE anymore.

Also, you can use plan mode with one model and build with another. It's nice to be able to do both at the same time.

Railway

Oh man, I'm excited for this first Railway news. How has no one done this yet? They've released what they're calling Magic Config in beta. This scans your code and adds all your environment variables automatically, and it stays in sync with your code. You still have to enter in your variable values, of course. I'm going to have to try this out soon.

I mentioned last week that secure database access was in beta. It's already generally available.

Use my affiliate code to sign up for Railway if you want.

Other

At React's conference this year, Meta announced it's donating React and React Native to the Linux Foundation. The Linux Foundation will create a new foundation called the React Foundation. This foundation will take over governance, core infrastructure, and events. The founding members of the foundation will come from Amazon, Meta, Vercel, and more. It's hard to see that corporate influence will be neutral. Vercel especially has high stakes in React going a certain direction.

What did I miss? There’s so much happening in modern web dev that I’m sure I have missed something. Please share your thoughts in the comments or reply to this email. I want to address your suggestions and may include them in future newsletters.

Thanks for reading. See you next time.