Next.js Daily: Server HMR and Asset Cache Improvements

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Good morning. This is Next.js Daily for February 12th, 2026.

Will Binns-Smith merged Server HMR implementation for Turbopack's Node.js development runtime. This enables hot module replacement for React Server Components, where only modified modules are re-evaluated while unmodified modules retain their state. The system uses Turbopack's existing chunk update mechanism to send HMR payloads to the Node.js runtime.

Tobias Koppers merged CSS URL deployment ID suffix support, adding `?dpl=<deployment_id>` query parameters to asset URLs referenced in CSS declarations. This enables proper cache busting for CSS-referenced images and fonts when using `deploymentId` in next.config.js, affecting both Turbopack and Webpack builds.

Sebastian Silbermann merged comprehensive Next CLI flags documentation, updating installation guides, debugging documentation, and migration guides with detailed command-line flag explanations across 27 files.

Jude Gao merged bundled documentation shipping with the Next.js npm package. Create-next-app now generates AGENTS.md files by default, instructing AI coding agents to reference current documentation instead of potentially outdated training data.

Andrew Imm resolved a Turbopack conflict where sitemap.ts and sitemap/page.tsx couldn't coexist, treating sitemap.xml like other metadata files by including the extension in the AppPage path.

Additional commits included LRU cache eviction fixes during prefetch batches, Turbopack task error handling improvements, and test stabilization for hash navigation and asset URL assertions.

What's next: Server HMR functionality continues expanding, and the AI agent documentation approach may influence other framework tooling.

That's Next.js Daily. We'll be back tomorrow with more updates.