Web Performance Audit
Overview
Audit web page performance using Chrome DevTools MCP tools. This skill focuses on Core Web Vitals, network optimization, and high-level accessibility gaps.
When to use
- Auditing, profiling, or optimizing page load, Lighthouse scores, or Core Web Vitals.
- Chrome DevTools MCP tools are available (verify first).
Do not use for general UI implementation (frontend-ui-engineering) or backend/API performance (performance-optimization).
Process
- Verify MCP tools. Call
navigate_pageorperformance_start_trace. If unavailable, stop — do not invent an audit. Ask the user to add thechrome-devtoolsMCP server. - Be specific and quantified. Confirm unused before recommending removal. Skip 0ms-impact findings. Name the resource and expected saving.
- Run the five phases: performance trace → Core Web Vitals insights → network → accessibility snapshot → codebase analysis (skip for third-party sites without source). Tool names, insight table, and bundler checks:
references/devtools-audit.md. - Report a CWV table, prioritized issues with estimated impact, specific recommendations, and codebase findings when source is available.
Red flags
- Recommending changes with 0ms estimated impact.
- Continuing the audit when MCP tools are unavailable.
- Vague advice ("optimize images") instead of a named resource and expected saving.
Verification
Present findings as:
- Core Web Vitals Summary — Table with metric, value, and rating (good/needs-improvement/poor)
- Top Issues — Prioritized list of problems with estimated impact (high/medium/low)
- Recommendations — Specific, actionable fixes with code snippets or config changes
- Codebase Findings — Framework/bundler detected, optimization opportunities (omit if no codebase access)
References
references/devtools-audit.md— MCP config, tool calls, phases, insight names, bundler checks