Overview

What the pipeline does for every image you upload.

Updated April 15, 2026

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What it does

When you upload an image to a Dash4Devs organization, the backend automatically produces:

A tiny (~2 KB) base64 LQIP placeholder stored on the image record, used for blur-up effects before the full image loads.
Responsive variants at 4 widths (320, 640, 1024, 1920) in both WebP and AVIF — 8 files per image total.

Every variant is uploaded to DO Spaces at a versioned, immutable path, so browsers and the CDN edge can cache them forever.

No Next.js image optimizer running at request time — variants are pre-generated once.
Instant first paint — LQIP blur placeholder appears before the real image arrives.
Right-sized downloads — the browser picks the smallest variant that fits the viewport via srcset.
Modern formats — AVIF for supporting browsers (30-50% smaller than JPEG), WebP fallback.

On create: triggered by a post-save signal the moment a MediaFile is saved with an image.
On replace: if you overwrite the file on an existing record, version bumps and new variants are generated under the new version path — old URLs stay valid until cleanup.
Animated / vector: GIFs and SVGs are passed through unchanged (the original URL is still served).