Opus 4.5 is here

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What’s up, everyone? For my fellow U.S. devs, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I know I did.

Welcome to Next in Dev. In this issue: Payload CMS v3.65, Figma sued, and Opus 4.5.

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The Payload CMS team released version 3.65.0. I explored this version in my latest live stream. The team introduced a couple new features for the MCP plugin. The first is localization support for resources. The second is the PayloadRequest object for tools, prompts, and resource handlers is now available.

You're now able to add interfaces for your plugins to use to the custom property for collections and globals. This helps keep your plugin type safe, even when you don't know what the host project's config looks like.

We also saw two new hooks added to the MongoDB adapter. You can now add custom behavior after you create or open your connections.

The biggest news is a huge speed boost for checking who can see what, making the whole system run up to 50 times faster. This matters because you enjoy fast permissions checking. This update should make your entire admin UI feel snappy.

Many of you already have a good idea of what Next.js is. But, perhaps, you haven’t heard it quite like this:

A group of people is suing Figma. They claim the company used all the customers’ drawings and designs to teach its AI how to make new things. They say Figma never asked for permission. Figma denies this and says they are very careful to only use customer data if they get a clear "yes" first.

This is a reminder that we must be honest with people about how we use their information on our websites and apps. Especially when we make new tools that use AI. It forces us to think about consent and privacy from the start when we design any new feature.

Next.js 16 and Payload CMS are still not compatible, but it is still worth it to stay up-to-date with what Next.js is doing. If you want to stay updated with the blockers, you can check out this PR.

Next.js released two updates to fix issues with how your website gets its information. Version 16.0.4 made sure that when a request errors out, it doesn't cause a confusing error for your visitors. Version 16.0.5 fixed an issue where the middleware waited too long for information to be ready before moving on.

These matter because they help make your Next.js application more robust. The fix in 16.0.4 stops annoying error messages for users who navigate away in a rush. That makes their experience feel smoother. The middleware fix in 16.0.5 ensures that special security or routing logic runs as it should. This prevents hidden delays that could slow down your application.

Cursor 2.1 is an update that helps you write and fix code faster by giving its smart features new abilities. Plan Mode now asks you questions when you start a task. This is key to making sure it understands exactly what you want before it begins coding. Cursor also added AI Code Review inside your code. Now it can immediately spot problems in your changes. The last new feature is Instant Grep, its searching tool. Instant Grep now finds things much quicker. Keep in mind that Instant Grep is in beta. This means there may be breaking changes in the future.

This matters because the updates make using the AI to build your projects more reliable. By asking better questions up front, Plan Mode saves you time by avoiding wasted work. The Instant Grep feature makes looking through your entire project feel faster. The in-editor AI Code Review checks your work right away. That means fewer bugs sneak into your finished product.

Anthropic released a new model called Claude Opus 4.5. Anthropic claims that it's the best in the world at writing and fixing code. Let's not forget that the marketing department is the one that releases this news.

Anthropic says this new model is better at understanding hard jobs. This includes complicated software problems. They also say it costs less money to use than before. Opus 4.5 also has a new "effort" setting that lets you tell the model if it should think or give a fast response.

This matters to web developers because Opus 4.5 helps you write and fix your code with fewer mistakes. Since Opus 4.5 costs less to use, you can let it work on more of your coding and planning tasks without breaking the bank. Finally, the new effort control gives you the power to adjust the AI's work. This makes it fit whether you need a quick or careful answer.

Railway brought a realtime notifications feed into your dashboard. Realtime notifications are now generally available. This feed contains things like:

This means you can see issues without checking your email or digging through logs.

They also streamlined how their community experts answer application-level questions. Beyond that, Railway now supports preview environment creation from PRs made by Copilot.

The new notifications help you fix problems faster by putting failures in plain view. Spinning up a preview environment for Copilot-generated code saves you time. It automates a key step in your development workflow. Additionally, better community support means you get the right help at the right time. This keeps your projects moving forward.

Astro 5.16 now cleans up and shrinks your SVG image files. This helps your website load faster for everyone without losing quality. They also added simple keyboard shortcuts to the astro preview command. Now it's quicker to open or close your test website right from the terminal. Finally, this update makes it easier for AI tools like GitHub Copilot to set up new integrations.

This update speeds up your work. It also improves your site's performance without any extra effort from you. Automatic SVG optimization reduces your site's file sizes. This can improve page speed scores and may help with search engine rankings. Changes like CLI shortcuts and better support for AI help you automate setup tasks. Now you can focus more on building features.

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.

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