Smart Placement Gotchas

Smart Placement Gotchas

Common Errors

"INSUFFICIENT_INVOCATIONS"

Cause: Not enough traffic for Smart Placement to analyze Solution:

• Ensure Worker receives consistent global traffic
• Wait longer (analysis takes up to 15 minutes)
• Send test traffic from multiple global locations
• Check Worker has fetch event handler

"UNSUPPORTED_APPLICATION"

Cause: Smart Placement made Worker slower rather than faster Reasons:

• Worker doesn't make backend calls (runs faster at edge)
• Backend calls are cached (network latency to user more important)
• Backend service has good global distribution
• Worker serves static assets or Pages content

Solutions:

• Disable Smart Placement: { "placement": { "mode": "off" } }
• Review whether Worker actually benefits from Smart Placement
• Consider caching strategy to reduce backend calls
• For Pages/Assets Workers, use separate backend Worker with Smart Placement

"No request duration metrics"

Cause: Smart Placement not enabled, insufficient time passed, insufficient traffic, or analysis incomplete Solution:

• Ensure Smart Placement enabled in config
• Wait 15+ minutes after deployment
• Verify Worker has sufficient traffic
• Check placement_status is SUCCESS

"cf-placement header missing"

Cause: Smart Placement not enabled, beta feature removed, or Worker not analyzed yet Solution: Verify Smart Placement enabled, wait for analysis (15min), check if beta feature still available

Pages/Assets + Smart Placement Performance Degradation

Problem: Static assets load 2-5x slower when Smart Placement enabled with run_worker_first = true.

Cause: Smart Placement routes ALL requests (including static assets like HTML, CSS, JS, images) to remote locations. Static content should ALWAYS be served from edge closest to user.

Solution: Split into separate Workers OR disable Smart Placement:

// ❌ BAD - Assets routed away from user
{
  "name": "pages-app",
  "placement": { "mode": "smart" },
  "assets": { "run_worker_first": true }
}

// ✅ GOOD - Assets at edge, API optimized
// frontend/wrangler.jsonc
{
  "name": "frontend",
  "assets": { "run_worker_first": true }
  // No placement field - stays at edge
}

// backend/wrangler.jsonc
{
  "name": "backend-api",
  "placement": { "mode": "smart" }
}

This is one of the most common and impactful Smart Placement misconfigurations.

Monolithic Full-Stack Worker

Problem: Frontend and backend logic in single Worker with Smart Placement enabled.

Cause: Smart Placement optimizes for backend latency but increases user-facing response time.

Solution: Split into two Workers:

// frontend/wrangler.jsonc
{
  "name": "frontend",
  "placement": { "mode": "off" },  // Explicit: stay at edge
  "services": [{ "binding": "BACKEND", "service": "backend-api" }]
}

// backend/wrangler.jsonc
{
  "name": "backend-api",
  "placement": { "mode": "smart" },
  "d1_databases": [{ "binding": "DB", "database_id": "xxx" }]
}

Local Development Confusion

Issue: Smart Placement doesn't work in wrangler dev.

Explanation: Smart Placement only activates in production deployments, not local development.

Solution: Test Smart Placement in staging environment: wrangler deploy --env staging

Baseline Traffic & Analysis Time

Note: Smart Placement routes 1% of requests WITHOUT optimization for comparison (expected).

Analysis time: Up to 15 minutes. During analysis, Worker runs at edge. Monitor placement_status.

RPC Methods Not Affected (Critical Limitation)

Problem: Enabled Smart Placement on backend but RPC calls still slow.

Cause: Smart Placement ONLY affects fetch handlers. RPC methods (Service Bindings with WorkerEntrypoint) are NEVER affected.

Why: RPC bypasses fetch handler - Smart Placement can only route fetch requests.

Solution: Convert to fetch-based Service Bindings:

// ❌ RPC - Smart Placement has NO EFFECT
export class BackendRPC extends WorkerEntrypoint {
  async getData() {
    // ALWAYS runs at edge
    return await this.env.DATABASE.prepare('SELECT * FROM table').all();
  }
}

// ✅ Fetch - Smart Placement WORKS
export default {
  async fetch(request: Request, env: Env): Promise<Response> {
    // Runs close to DATABASE when Smart Placement enabled
    const data = await env.DATABASE.prepare('SELECT * FROM table').all();
    return Response.json(data);
  }
}

Requirements

• Wrangler 2.20.0+ required
• Consistent multi-region traffic needed for analysis
• Only affects fetch handlers - RPC methods and named entrypoints not affected

Limits

Disabling Smart Placement

{ "placement": { "mode": "off" } }  // Explicit disable
// OR remove "placement" field entirely (same effect)

Both behaviors identical - Worker runs at edge closest to user.

When NOT to Use Smart Placement

• Workers serving only static content or cached responses
• Workers without significant backend communication
• Pure edge logic (auth checks, redirects, simple transformations)
• Workers without fetch event handlers
• Pages/Assets Workers with run_worker_first = true
• Workers using RPC methods instead of fetch handlers

These scenarios won't benefit and may perform worse with Smart Placement.