# Developer Preferences

## Code Style choices
- Keep edits surgical.
- Robust error handling for all network calls (use `try/catch` and safe mock recovery responses instead of throwing uncaught exceptions).
- Standardize authentication paths under clean single-source-of-truth helpers (e.g. `tokenUtils`).

## Tech Stack Decisions
- **Frontend**: Next.js App Router (running on port `3002`)
- **Backend**: Express API (running on port `3001`)
- **Database**: MySQL/MariaDB (configured via environment config on standard port `3306`)
- **Styles**: Tailwind CSS
- **Auth**: Stateless JWT authorization (dual storage: cookie standard with localStorage fallback). Key standardised as `access_token`.
- **Scraper & Fetch Utilities**: `cheerio` and `axios` installed in backend workspace services.