The 30-Second Ghost: When a Simple Audit Took Down My Backend

SHEEZAL PATEL — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 11:03:17 +0000

My AI Spend Audit app worked perfectly locally—until I connected the frontend to MongoDB. Suddenly, every audit submission returned a 500, and the browser showed Failed to save audit. The weird part? The request sometimes took almost 30 seconds before failing.

I initially suspected my API payload or Mongoose model. I checked the request body, schema, and API route, but everything looked correct. The timeout finally pointed me toward the database connection rather than the frontend.

After debugging MongoDB Atlas connectivity and environment configuration, I fixed the connection issue and the API started persisting audits successfully.

But wait bro the chaos wasn't over yet. My new /audit/[id] report page returned a 404. The logs revealed that modern Next.js was treating dynamic params as a Promise. I was accessing params.id synchronously, so I changed the server component to await the params before querying MongoDB.

After both fixes, the flow became:

Form → API → MongoDB → /audit/[id] → Shareable Report

I also added automated tests around the audit engine and verified the production build before deployment.

The biggest lesson wasn't just how to fix two bugs—it was learning to follow the evidence. A 500 wasn't necessarily a frontend problem, and a 404 wasn't necessarily a missing page. Logs, timing, and framework errors told the real story.

The bug didn't just get fixed. The system became more resilient because of it.

Well well !!!!!
Guys here is the--
Live link : https://credexproject-eta.vercel.app/
Git Repo : https://github.com/Shezalpatelcode/ai-spend-audit

~ Written By : Sheezal Patel
#bugsmash tag #devchallenge #challenge #WebDev #Development

Ghar ka Swaad !!

SHEEZAL PATEL — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 05:45:27 +0000

_What I Built
🇮🇳 Ghar Ka Swaad — Every Taste Has a Story

What makes you feel at home?

For some of us, it is the smell of chai during the monsoon.
For some, it is a plate of rajma chawal waiting after a long day.
For others, it is idli and sambar, dal baati, poha, momos, litti chokha, biryani, or a recipe passed down through generations.

Ghar Ka Swaad is an interactive journey through India's regional comfort food, built around one simple idea:

Every state has a taste. Every taste has a story. Every story has a home.

Instead of creating a conventional restaurant landing page, I wanted to turn the landing page itself into an illustrated, interactive India.

The experience begins with:

“What makes you feel at home?”

The title GHAR KA SWAAD travels across multiple Indian scripts and languages, representing how one feeling can be expressed in many different languages.

From there, users are invited to explore an interactive map of India.

Each state has its own comfort-food identity, cultural atmosphere, regional characters, illustrations and stories.

Select Rajasthan and the interface transforms into a warm desert-inspired world with Rajasthani characters and Dal Baati Churma.

Select Tamil Nadu and the atmosphere changes again, bringing in Idli, Dosa and Sambar, South Indian cultural elements and a completely different visual personality.

The website currently explores all 28 Indian states, while also allowing common dishes to cross state boundaries because food doesn't always follow political borders.

🌧️ Monsoon Mode

Since comfort food becomes even more meaningful during India's rainy season, I also created a contextual monsoon experience.

When the rain arrives:

☕ Masala Chai + Bhajiya
🥟 Momos + Chutney
🌽 Hot Bhutta
🥔 Pakoras
🍜 Hot Noodles

become part of the experience.

☀️ Day & 🌙 Night

The entire environment also changes between day and night.

Day mode brings sunlight, clouds, warm colours and a lively atmosphere.

Night mode transforms the world with stars, moonlight, glowing windows, warm food stalls and subtle ambient animations.

The goal was to make the website feel like a living illustrated storybook rather than a static food website.

Demo

Live Demo:
https://gharkaswaad-5bk2v48.public.builtwithrocket.new

The experience is best explored interactively:

Start → Choose a state → Discover its food → Explore its story → Learn the recipe → Find it nearby → Explore another state

Journey

I started with a simple question:

What makes food feel like home?

The answer wasn't really about food.

It was about memory.

A dish can remind us of a person, a place, a festival, a rainy evening, a childhood kitchen or a family sitting around the same table.

That became the foundation of Ghar Ka Swaad.

Instead of building a conventional restaurant page, I designed the experience around:

Home → India → State → People → Food → Story → Recipe → Memory

One of the biggest challenges was making the experience feel visually rich without sacrificing usability. I wanted the illustrations, animations and cultural elements to enhance the experience rather than become distractions.

I also wanted the interface to respond to context.

That's why the same website can feel completely different depending on:

the selected state
day/night mode
monsoon mode
the food being explored

I used React, TypeScript, CSS and animation-driven interactions to build the experience with reusable components and structured state data.

The regional illustrations and food imagery are used to create a more immersive visual language, while the interactive map acts as the primary navigation mechanism.

What I learned

This project pushed me to think beyond:

“How do I make a beautiful webpage?”

and instead ask:

“How can the interface itself tell the story?”

The biggest lesson was that a landing page doesn't have to be just an introduction to a product.

It can become the product experience itself.

And perhaps the most important thing I discovered while building Ghar Ka Swaad:

Home doesn't always have an address. Sometimes, it has a recipe. ❤️

Built with: React · TypeScript · CSS · Framer Motion · SVG · Responsive Design

~Made by Sheezal Patel

Made for the DEV Frontend Challenge — Comfort Food Edition.

FrontEnd #DevCommunity #GharkaSwaad

DEV Community: SHEEZAL PATEL

The 30-Second Ghost: When a Simple Audit Took Down My Backend

Ghar ka Swaad !!

FrontEnd #DevCommunity #GharkaSwaad