Payload tip and Next.js 16 is GA

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What’s up, everyone? Welcome to Next in Dev. In this issue, I cover Payload 3.61, why I'm not rushing to Next.js 16, and AI buzz.

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The Payload CMS team released version 3.61. This one comes with only one new feature: the MCP plugin.

I'm thinking I'll be covering this on a live stream. Maybe next week.

Either way, this plugin will allow you to treat your Payload CMS as an MCP server. You'll interact with your collections with a standardized protocol. This means you can use the tools provided to perform CRUD operations. There's also support for custom tools. Lots of good stuff with this one!

I’ve got two videos for you this week! Check out how to deploy your Next.js and Payload CMS project on Railway (in the Railway section) or self-host on Dokploy (directly below). Just in time for that AWS outage, here is one way to deploy your app with a reduced risk of a us-east-1 outage taking you offline.

This is more like a JavaScript tip of the week, but did you know you can rename destructured variables? This can help clarify what you're operating on and prevent variable name collisions.

For example, we know all Payload documents are stored in a docs array. Let's use a "submissions" collection in this example. We could make it clear that we're working on that collection by changing docs to submissions. Like this:

Let me know if this was helpful! Have a tip you want to share? Reply to this email or leave a comment!

Figma added some new features in Figma Buzz. There are new templates, the added ability to trim video, and new plugins.

They've also made it easier to switch accounts on the mobile app. I can't imagine this was a huge problem. But what do I know?

Next.js 16 is now stable. I'm not jumping onto it anytime soon for my older production projects. Those are working fine without Next 16. I'll review Next.js 16 in a live stream as well, but here are some highlights.

People have reported mixed results in upgrading Payload CMS to Next.js 16. Again, I'm waiting until it's supported by Payload CMS.

Did I mention I'm planning on live-streaming again? Oh...there it is again.

You'll see a new video above outlining how to replace Vercel in your Next.js/Payload CMS projects. Someone has now requested that I do one for Cloudflare. I'm going to start the process with a live stream, though, so you all can see the struggle that goes into my tutorials.

Other than that, there's not much new with Cloudflare this week. Although I did notice they have a new sidebar that looks way better.

OpenAI had a busy week. They acquired a company called "Applications Incorporated," which made software called Sky. The plan is to drive a deeper integration between ChatGPT and what's happening on macOS. They're driving toward full integration of AI assistants on your machine.

In related news, OpenAI also released ChatGPT Atlas. They're a few beats behind Perplexity's Comet. But, they did get around to releasing their own Chrome alternative Chromium browser. I still have a hard time offering up all my privacy to use one of these browsers. Please let me know what you think of these browsers.

In short, the browser always has ChatGPT open as you browse. You can then tell it to do stuff for you. Revolutionary.

Anthropic introduced Claude Code for the web in a beta release. This will link to your repo and run Claude Code in the cloud. You're now able to run tasks in parallel across many repositories. It's all vibes (but only for Pro and Max users).

Back to business with Railway this week. I had a great deal of fun making this Railway deployment video. I hope you enjoy it, as well.

Your Railway service creation process is now repo-aware. You'll now see repo-specific information in autocomplete with a repo's specific information. No more manual hunting or copy-and-pasting. It's all there for you.

Your database queries are now routed through the private network. This feature is currently in beta, so you'll need to opt-in through your account settings. This means no more egress fees to access your database's data. It's also more secure since you don't have to have your database exposed to the internet.

Last, IPv4 private networks are now out of beta. There's not much you have to do here. If you want to choose IPv4 for internal networking, you can. Or you can stick with IPv6. Either way, the private network will work.

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.