The Problem We Were Actually Solving

As an engineer, my primary focus was ensuring our store could handle any data we might collect, considering our restrictions. Traditional e-commerce platforms were out, so I built our store directly on top of IPFS. The IPFS advantage of decentralized data storage allowed us to work around the usual payment issues. With a monorepo setup, I could handle all frontend and server-side logic in a single repository. The idea behind this decision was to simplify the development process and reduce the load on our servers, which are usually the bottleneck in complex applications.

What We Tried First (And Why It Failed)

Initially, I used a Next.js monorepo setup, with a clear separation of frontend and server logic. While this seemed like a good idea, it led to a significant increase in our build times. As we started to onboard new team members, it became apparent that managing the build process was almost as difficult as writing the application itself. The monorepo was meant to simplify things, but we quickly found ourselves wasting hours on merging code and debugging build-related issues.

The Architecture Decision

To get around these issues, I switched to a modular, multi-repo setup with a separate repository for our server logic. This allowed us to easily manage separate build processes for our frontend and backend code. We then used a third-party service for our IPFS data storage, which significantly reduced our development time and made it easier for the team to manage our codebase. In addition, we replaced the complex setup of our Next.js monorepo with a more straightforward React setup, which allowed our developers to focus on the logic of the application rather than dealing with an overly complex build process.

What The Numbers Said After

After implementing our new architecture, our build times decreased by 30%, and our code quality improved significantly. Our team spent less time on debugging and more time on actually writing code that mattered. The number of pull requests merged daily also went up, signaling that our team had made a crucial step forward in productivity.

What I Would Do Differently

If I had to do it all over again, I'd implement the modular setup from the start. It's clear now that this approach would have saved us time and resources in the long run. I'd also consider using a more robust tooling setup to manage our monorepo, like Yarn Workspaces or Nx. In hindsight, making the switch to a multi-repo setup might have been overkill, but the benefits we achieved were worth the investment.