performance-optimization

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• SKILL.md
• optimization-patterns.md · references/

SKILL.md (first lines)

# Performance Optimization

## Overview

Measure before optimizing. Performance work without measurement is guessing — and guessing leads to premature optimization that adds complexity without improving what matters. Profile first, identify the actual bottleneck, fix it, measure again. Optimize only what measurements prove matters.

## When to Use

- Performance requirements exist in the spec (load time budgets, response time SLAs)
- Users or monitoring report slow behavior
- Core Web Vitals scores are below thresholds
- You suspect a change introduced a regression
- Building features that handle large datasets or high traffic

**When NOT to use:** Don't optimize before you have evidence of a problem. Premature optimization adds complexity that costs more than the performance it gains.

## Core Web Vitals Targets

| Metric | Good | Needs Improvement | Poor |
|--------|------|-------------------|------|
| **LCP** (Largest Contentful Paint) | ≤ 2.5s | ≤ 4.0s | > 4.0s |
| **INP** (Interaction to Next Paint) | ≤ 200ms | ≤ 500ms | > 500ms |
| **CLS** (Cumulative Layout Shift) | ≤ 0.1 | ≤ 0.25 | > 0.25 |

## The Optimization Workflow

```
1. MEASURE  → Establish baseline with real data
2. IDENTIFY → Find the actual bottleneck (not assumed)
3. FIX      → Address the specific bottleneck
4. VERIFY   → Measure again; keep or revert
5. GUARD    → Add monitoring or tests to prevent regression
```

### Step 1: Measure

Two complementary approaches — use both:

- **Synthetic (Lighthouse, DevTools Performance tab):** Controlled conditions, reproducible. Best for CI regression detection and isolating specific issues.
- **RUM (web-vitals library, CrUX):** Real user data in real conditions. Required to validate that a fix actually improved user experience.

**Frontend:**
```javascript
// Synthetic: Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools (or CI)
// Chrome DevTools → Performance tab → Record
// Chrome DevTools MCP → Performance trace

// RUM: Web Vitals library in code
import { onLCP, onINP, onCLS } from 'web-vitals';

onLCP(console.log);
onINP(console.log);
onCLS(console.log);
```

**Backend:**
```javascript
// Response time logging
// Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
// Database query logging with timing

// Simple timing
console.time('db-query');
const result = await db.query(...);
console.timeEnd('db-query');
```

### Where to Start Measuring

Use the symptom to decide what to measure first:

```
What is slow?
├── First page load
│   ├── Large bundle? --> Measure bundle size, check code splitting
│   ├── Slow server response? --> Measure TTFB in DevTools Network waterfall
│   │   ├── DNS long? --> Add dns-prefetch / preconnect for known origins
│   │   ├── TCP/TLS long? --> Enable HTTP/2, check edge deployment, keep-alive
│   │   └── Waiting (server) long? --> Profile backend, check queries and caching
│   └── Render-blocking resources? --> Check network waterfall for CSS/JS blocking
├── Interaction feels sluggish
│   ├── UI freezes on click? --> Profile main thread, look for long tasks (>50ms)
│   ├── Form input lag? --> Check re-renders, controlled component overhead
│   └── Animation jank? --> Check layout thrashing, forced reflows
├── Page after navigation
│   ├── Data loading? --> Measure API response times, check for waterfalls
│   └── Client rendering? --> Profile component render time, check for N+1 fetches
└── Backend / API
    ├── Single endpoint slow? --> Profile database queries, check indexes
    ├── All endpoints slow? --> Check connection pool, memory, CPU
    └── Intermittent slowness? --> Check for lock contention, GC pauses, external deps
```

### Step 2: Identify the Bottleneck

Common bottlenecks by category:

**Frontend:**

| Symptom | Likely Cause | Investigation |
|---------|-------------|---------------|
| Slow LCP | Large images, render-blocking resources, slow server | Check network waterfall, image sizes |
| High CLS | Images without dimensions, late-loading content, font shifts | Check layout shift attribution |
| Poor INP | Heavy JavaScript on main thread, large DOM updates | Check long tasks in Performance trace |
| Slow initial load | Large bundle, many network requests | Check bundle size, code splitting |

**Backend:**

| Symptom | Likely Cause | Investigation |
|---------|-------------|---------------|
| Slow API responses | N+1 queries, missing indexes, unoptimized queries | Check database query log |
| Memory growth | Leaked references, unbounded caches, large payloads | Heap snapshot analysis |
| CPU spikes | Synchronous heavy computation, regex backtracking | CPU profiling |
| High latency | Missing caching, redundant computation, network hops | Trace requests through the stack |

### Step 3: Fix the Bottleneck

Fix the one thing Step 2 identified, nothing else. The anti-patterns below are the usual suspects; each entry gives the rule and the signature to recognize it, and links to a worked fix in [references/optimization-patterns.md](references/optimization-patterns.md). Open the one you need when you reach that code, not before.

From Jero110/faro-agent, MIT.

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