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frontend-patterns/README.md
tegwick 2a5dabdc85 Preserve initial frontend pattern language research scaffold 
Assistant: codex
Assistant-Model: gpt-6-astra
Assistant-Session: 01a0cffe-206f-7323-89d3-b20ca4cf4bf9
2026-09-24 07:55:34 +02:00

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frontend-patterns

A coherent, generative pattern language for frontend architecture and design.

The project treats frontend architecture not as a choice among frameworks or named styles, but as the progressive resolution of recurring forces concerning:

  • authority,
  • addressability,
  • projection,
  • interaction,
  • mutation,
  • synchronization and reconciliation,
  • composition,
  • execution and delivery,
  • quality boundaries.

The repository is intended as an infospace for both human and agentic reference.

Its goal is to make frontend architecture:

  1. understandable as a set of recurring design problems,
  2. navigable as a connected language of patterns,
  3. generative rather than merely taxonomic,
  4. explicit about trade-offs and failure modes,
  5. independent of framework fashion,
  6. grounded in known implementations and sources,
  7. machine-readable enough for agents to reason over.

Core proposition

Frontend architecture is the progressive resolution of forces concerning authority, addressability, projection, interaction, synchronization, composition, and execution. A frontend pattern language captures recurring resolutions of those forces and the contexts they create for subsequent design decisions.

Repository map

  • canon/ — normative vocabulary and structure of the language.
  • patterns/ — individual frontend architecture and design patterns.
  • sequences/ — generative sequences for common frontend situations.
  • architectures/ — named architectural configurations expressed through patterns.
  • technologies/ — mappings from technologies/frameworks to the patterns they implement.
  • research/ — research material, source reconciliation, concepts, catalogues, and cases.
  • templates/ — authoring templates for new patterns and mappings.

Design principles

Patterns before products

React, Solid, HTMX, Astro, LiveView, Vue, Svelte and similar technologies are treated as implementations and examples, not as the ontology.

Forces before preferences

A pattern should be selected because of the forces present in a context, not because a framework community considers it idiomatic.

Relations before lists

Patterns form a graph. Important relations include:

  • requires
  • enables
  • refines
  • generalizes
  • complements
  • alternative-to
  • conflicts-with
  • commonly-combined-with
  • creates-context-for
  • implemented-by
  • observed-in

Sequences before checklists

A pattern language should help generate architecture through an ordered sequence of decisions.

Failure modes are part of the pattern

Software patterns must describe when they become harmful, misleading, expensive or fragile.

Status

This repository begins as a research-backed v0.1 scaffold. The first research case is Ryan Carniato's "The Grand Unifying Architecture of Frontend", used as a starting point for decomposing modern frontend architectures into deeper responsibilities and forces.