Today reminded me why debugging is one of the most valuable skills a developer can have.
I deployed one of my projects expecting everything to work smoothly. Instead, multiple routes started breaking in production. My first instinct was that the routing itself was the problem, so I began fixing route definitions and checking navigation logic.
Every time I fixed something, another error appeared.
For hours, it felt like I was playing whack-a-mole with bugs. I reviewed components, deployment settings, API calls, environment variables, and server configuration. Nothing seemed to explain why the application worked locally but failed after deployment.
Eventually, I discovered I needed fallback routes for client-side routing, which resolved part of the issue. That felt like the answer... until more requests kept failing.
The real culprit turned out to be my _Axios _configuration.
A small mistake in how my API client was configured caused requests to fail in production, which made it appear as if my routes were broken. The routing wasn't the primary issue—it was simply exposing another configuration problem underneath.
This experience reinforced a few lessons:
- The first visible error isn't always the root cause.
- Production environments expose issues that localhost can hide.
- Debugging is a process of forming hypotheses, testing them, and eliminating possibilities.
- Understanding why something breaks is far more valuable than finding a quick fix.
Writing features is exciting, but debugging teaches you how your application actually works. Every frustrating bug is an opportunity to understand your stack a little more deeply.
Today didn't add a new feature to my project.
It made me a **better **developer.
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