Stop Auth Flickers: Edge Middleware in Next.js ⚡

The Amateur UI Flicker When building protected routes (like /dashboard) in a React Single Page Application (SPA), developers usually handle authentication on the client side. A user navigates to the dashboard, the React component mounts, and a useEffect hook checks if a valid JWT token exists in localStorage. If it doesn't, React redirects them to /login. This creates the infamous Auth Flicker. Because React has to render the DOM before the useEffect fires, the unauthenticated user physically se