Module Federation: Divide, Conquer, Share!

Micro frontends are an architectural approach where a web application is broken down into smaller, independent, and self-contained frontend components that can be developed, deployed, and maintained by separate teams.

Micro frontends can be beneficial when your team or application has grown, requiring separate teams for maintenance. They allow for independently deployable components, improving maintainability and scalability.

Module federation is a technique introduced in Webpack 5, allowing parts of a web application, like components or functions, to be shared across applications at runtime without needing to redeploy the host application.

Build-time techniques require redeployment for changes, ensuring version consistency but adding complexity. Runtime techniques, like module federation, allow immediate updates without redeployment but can introduce runtime errors if backward compatibility isn't maintained.

Module Federation 2.0 includes a TypeScript plugin that automatically extracts and shares type definitions from remote modules, ensuring type safety and enabling features like auto-complete in the host application.

The strangle pattern involves incrementally updating or replacing parts of an application by integrating new components using module federation, allowing gradual migration without disrupting the entire system.

To ensure high availability, serve assets from reliable sources like CDNs or industry-standard storage solutions, and implement error boundaries to handle runtime failures gracefully.

Tools like Medusa help visualize micro frontend dependencies, and the Chrome Model Federation plugin can assist in debugging by showing how modules are connected and consumed.

Use a shared UI kit to ensure consistency in styling across different micro frontend components, avoiding divergent styles like using different fonts on different pages.

State management should aim for decoupling. Use techniques like hooks, prop drilling, or local storage to manage state independently, or consider creating a federated module specifically for state management.