Svelte unleashes template declarations, Expo opens MCP to all

Svelte’s template declarations and live queries

The Svelte ecosystem delivered two standout features this week. Svelte 5.56 now allows declarations directly in templates — a long-requested capability that lets developers write {#let count = 0} inline rather than always reaching for <script>. The same release brings meaningful performance wins: Svelte uses createElement instead of createElementNS for HTML elements, converts internal source tracking to a Set for O(1) membership checks, and deduplicates identical hoisted templates within a component. A pair of patch releases followed, with svelte@5.55.10 fixing batch effect transfer and unlink issues, and patching $derived(await ...) in disconnected effect roots.

On the framework side, the Svelte blog rounded up June’s SvelteKit additions, headlined by a new query function .live(...) that makes real-time server data accessible with minimal ceremony. Forms also got attention: submit now returns a boolean indicating validity for enhanced forms. The post warns of a few breaking changes in remote functions for anyone already using them.

Next.js: optimizer rename and canary cleanup

Vercel shipped six canary releases during the week, mostly small fixes and internal refactors — but one structural change stands out. Next.js v16.3.0-canary.29 replaced the next-ppr-optimizer with a next-cache-components-optimizer, a renaming that signals a broader shift toward the cache-components architecture. The same canary also made dev loop login state persist across loops and fixed the errors.json merge driver to handle gaps in error codes.

Other notable fixes across the canary chain include a Firefox refresh loop fixed in initial load of streaming pages in dev mode, a 'use cache' bail-out regression patched under unstable_instant = false, and short-circuit evaluation of AND/OR operators fixed in the Turbopack analyzer for string and nullish-related methods. Later canaries added an experimental image optimization operation cache and improved Turbopack’s error handling on CLI failures.

Expo opens MCP to Free plan and ships EAS CLI v20

The biggest news for Expo this week is that the Expo MCP Server is now available on the Free plan. Previously restricted to paid accounts, the server lets AI coding assistants interact directly with an Expo project — and now any developer can use it without a subscription. Monthly MCP usage is included for Free accounts.

On the tooling side, EAS CLI v20.0.0 landed with breaking renames to the observe commands: observe:logs becomes observe:events, the old observe:events becomes observe:metrics, and the old observe:metrics becomes observe:metrics-summary. The eas go command now prompts you to select an Expo SDK version. A smaller v19.1.0 release added a --refresh-ad-hoc-provisioning-profile flag for iOS builds in non-interactive mode.