Practical articles about software, technology, and engineering.

OpenStair engineering writing on Flutter, backend systems, documentation, product architecture, open source, and production software delivery.

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Diagram showing authentication tokens moving between app, API, and identity layers
Backend

Refresh Tokens and Session Management Explained

September 15, 2025 · 15 min read

A deep dive into refresh tokens and session management: token rotation, reuse detection, secure client storage, and distributed session revocation architecture.

BackendAPIsSoftware EngineeringArchitecture
Diagram showing authentication tokens moving between app, API, and identity layers
Backend

JWT Authentication: How It Works and Where It Fits

September 14, 2025 · 19 min read

A comprehensive engineering guide to JWT authentication: RFC 7519 mechanics, signing algorithms, critical attack vectors, revocation tradeoffs, and token rotation.

BackendAPIsSoftware EngineeringArchitecture
Diagram showing modern authentication architecture across identity providers, session tokens, and WebAuthn authenticators
Backend

Designing Authentication for Modern Applications

September 13, 2025 · 19 min read

A deep architectural guide to modern application authentication: WebAuthn, FIDO2 passkeys, session topologies, OIDC federation, and Zero Trust continuous verification.

BackendAPIsSoftware EngineeringArchitecture
Diagram showing API clients, request handling, validation, and service responses
Backend

REST API Design: Principles for Maintainable APIs

September 10, 2025 · 22 min read

A comprehensive guide to designing maintainable REST APIs: architectural constraints, URI modeling, HTTP semantics, RFC 9457 errors, cursor pagination, and concurrency.

BackendAPIsSoftware EngineeringArchitecture