https://lhowsam.com/ Blog posts, client and product work, and personal projects from Luke Howsam — software development, React Native, TypeScript, and DevOps. en-gb https://lhowsam.com/blog/scaling-caching/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/scaling-caching/ Production grade scale for caching Fri, 06 Nov 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/expo-image-caching-deep-dive-foam/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/expo-image-caching-deep-dive-foam/ How I optimised expo-image for foam, a third-party Expo Twitch client. Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/how-react-native-new-architecture-works/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/how-react-native-new-architecture-works/ A practical deep dive into the old React Native bridge, the new architecture, JSI, Fabric, TurboModules, Codegen, threading, rendering, and the performance work that still matters in real apps. Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/how-to-profile-a-react-native-app/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/how-to-profile-a-react-native-app/ Profiling react native apps Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/setting-up-k3s-and-immich-on-a-vps/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/setting-up-k3s-and-immich-on-a-vps/ How I run Immich on k3s with Cloudflare Tunnel and automated backups Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/work-projects/sporting-life-mobile/ https://lhowsam.com/work-projects/sporting-life-mobile/ A rewrite of Sporting Life's native (Kotlin and Swift) apps to React Native - Unifying codebases, improving quality, speed, and ability to use the platform to its full ability. Sat, 27 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/ddos-attacks-and-how-to-prevent-them-with-cloudflare-aws-api-gateway/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/ddos-attacks-and-how-to-prevent-them-with-cloudflare-aws-api-gateway/ How to prevent ddos attacks with Cloudflare + AWS API Gateway authorizers Sun, 04 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/why-you-should-go-to-conferences/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/why-you-should-go-to-conferences/ Why you should attend a tech conference Sun, 02 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/work-projects/gls-game-launch-service/ https://lhowsam.com/work-projects/gls-game-launch-service/ worked within the GLS squad, a P1 mission-critical micro-service that powered all gaming content across gaming products Fri, 08 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/code-linters-and-formatters/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/code-linters-and-formatters/ What's the role of a code linter and formatter in our projects? Mon, 04 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/how-to-connect-a-custom-domain-to-aws-api-gateway/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/how-to-connect-a-custom-domain-to-aws-api-gateway/ How to connect a custom domain (cloudflare) to AWS API gateway and generate free SSL certificates Mon, 25 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/getting-started-with-aws-vault/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/getting-started-with-aws-vault/ AWS vault is a handy tool I use every day to manage my AWS credentials when developing locally Wed, 06 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/2023-year-in-review-and-2024-goals/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/2023-year-in-review-and-2024-goals/ 2023 year in review and goals for 2024 Sun, 14 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/how-to-use-the-spotify-api-with-next-js/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/how-to-use-the-spotify-api-with-next-js/ Recently I aimed to showcase the current Spotify song I was listening to on my website. To achieve this, I connected the Spotify API with Next.js route handlers. In this post, we'll go over how to do this to help you get started with Spotify's API Sat, 09 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/typescript-why-to-use-unknown-instead-of-any/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/typescript-why-to-use-unknown-instead-of-any/ How to manage TypeScript codebases when you don't know the exact shape of something Sat, 09 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/how-to-build-a-custom-prisma-generator/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/how-to-build-a-custom-prisma-generator/ Learn how to create a Prisma generator that outputs TypeScript types from your Prisma schema Sun, 27 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/work-projects/explore-education-statistics/ https://lhowsam.com/work-projects/explore-education-statistics/ EES, a full-stack project to make publishing statistics easier for the department for education Fri, 11 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/what-next-js-13-means-for-end-users/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/what-next-js-13-means-for-end-users/ Next.js 13 contains a lot of quality-of-life improvements for developers, but what do these benefits actually mean to end users? Sat, 18 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/conventional-commits-a-better-way-to-commit/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/conventional-commits-a-better-way-to-commit/ Conventional commits is a specification that seeks to improve and standardize commit messages in general. In this post, we'll go over the reasoning behind why you might want to use it & its benefits Mon, 09 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/getting-started-with-playwright-ui-testing/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/getting-started-with-playwright-ui-testing/ Playwright is a cross-browser end-to-end testing framework created by Microsoft. It's reliable, supports several languages, and is flake-resistant. In this post, we'll go over how to get started with Playwright. Sun, 13 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/work-projects/timeout-toolkit/ https://lhowsam.com/work-projects/timeout-toolkit/ Timeout Toolkit, a full-stack Next.js project built for a mental-health charity Thu, 18 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/launching-multiple-iterm2-windows-with-one-script/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/launching-multiple-iterm2-windows-with-one-script/ As your project grows in size it can become a bit tedious when you're starting up your local environment. In this post, we'll go from having to run 4 commands to only one command to start a project with multiple sub-projects Fri, 05 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/set-default-node-version-with-nvm/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/set-default-node-version-with-nvm/ NVM (Node version manager) is a handy tool for switching between Node versions. Sometimes, you want to stick to one particular version. Sun, 03 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/preventing-fouc-with-chakra-ui/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/preventing-fouc-with-chakra-ui/ How to prevent FOUC (flash of unstyled content) when using Next.js & Chakra UI Sat, 26 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/how-to-rename-local-and-remote-git-branches/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/how-to-rename-local-and-remote-git-branches/ How to rename local & remote git branches. Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/extending-multiple-classes-in-typegraphql/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/extending-multiple-classes-in-typegraphql/ How to extend multiple classes in TypeGraphQL and Typescript Sat, 05 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/full-stack-deploy-with-dokku/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/full-stack-deploy-with-dokku/ How to deploy a full-stack app with Dokku to AWS / Digital Ocean. Cost-effective deployment for Node, PostgreSQL & Redis Sat, 29 May 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/next-js-ssr-notes/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/next-js-ssr-notes/ Notes on the different methods of rendering that you can use with Next.js Tue, 06 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/forcing-git-merges/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/forcing-git-merges/ Isolating features into separate branches is a really common practice for most developers. By separating features & bug fixes you can avoid a lot of problems and keep your branches clean. Tue, 15 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/blog/first-blog-post/ https://lhowsam.com/blog/first-blog-post/ Posting the first blog post Thu, 10 Dec 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://lhowsam.com/projects/storify/ https://lhowsam.com/projects/storify/ Storify is a full-stack eCommerce app built to learn more about advanced database relationships, React & Stripe. https://lhowsam.com/projects/tightlog/ https://lhowsam.com/projects/tightlog/ Tightlog is an offline-first fishing logbook for iOS & Android that helps you capture good memories while fishing. https://lhowsam.com/projects/foam/ https://lhowsam.com/projects/foam/ Foam is a React Native Twitch client built to create a cleaner mobile viewing experience with better chat support and a stronger mobile delivery workflow. https://lhowsam.com/projects/config/ https://lhowsam.com/projects/config/ A repository that I created to manage my dotfiles https://lhowsam.com/projects/my-website/ https://lhowsam.com/projects/my-website/ My personal website, portfolio & blog. Currently built with Vanilla Extract, Next.js & Sanity.io. I like to try out different technology and test my skills with this project. https://lhowsam.com/projects/now-playing-lambda/ https://lhowsam.com/projects/now-playing-lambda/ In this project, I built an AWS lambda serverless function that makes requests to the Spotify API to get the currently playing song https://lhowsam.com/projects/uber-cost-calculator/ https://lhowsam.com/projects/uber-cost-calculator/ A simple node script that takes in a CSV file from Uber's 'download your data' request and calculates how much you've spent over the lifetime of your account 🙈