Performance Optimization

Overview

Performance optimization without profiling is guessing. This skill enforces: measure first, optimize the bottleneck, measure again. It prevents wasted effort on non-bottlenecks and ensures optimizations don't regress correctness.

When to Use

• When performance doesn't meet SLO
• Before any "performance improvement" PR
• When a feature is slow and the cause is unknown
• As part of the /review workflow for latency-sensitive paths

Process

Step 1: Measure the baseline

Before touching any code, record: current p50/p95/p99 latency, throughput, error rate under representative load. Without a baseline, you can't prove improvement.

Step 2: Profile to find the bottleneck

Run a profiler, not your intuition:

• CPU-bound: CPU profiler (flamegraph)
• Memory-bound: heap profiler, allocation profiler
• I/O-bound: database query analyzer, network profiler
• Web frontend: Chrome DevTools Performance tab, Lighthouse

The bottleneck is almost never where you think it is.

Step 3: Identify the worst offender

The single slowest operation in the critical path. Fix that first. Do not optimize non-bottlenecks.

Step 4: Write a benchmark before optimizing

Create a benchmark that isolates the bottleneck and can be run repeatedly. This is your before/after comparison.

Step 5: Optimize

Common patterns:

• Database: add missing indexes, eliminate N+1 queries, batch reads, use projections (don't SELECT *)
• Memory: streaming vs loading, lazy evaluation, object pooling
• CPU: algorithmic improvement, caching, memoization
• Network: batching, compression, HTTP/2, CDN, edge caching
• Frontend: code splitting, lazy loading, virtual scrolling, image optimization

Step 6: Measure the improvement

Run the benchmark before and after. Calculate: % improvement in p99, % reduction in resource usage. If the improvement is not measurable, the optimization was not worth the complexity.

Step 7: Verify correctness

Run the full test suite. Performance optimizations frequently introduce bugs.

Step 8: Document the optimization

Record: what was slow, why, what was done, and the measured improvement. Future engineers will need to understand why this code looks unusual.

Anti-Rationalizations

"I know this is slow — I don't need to profile" Everyone thinks they know where the bottleneck is. Profilers are always more accurate than intuition.

"This optimization is obvious — I don't need a benchmark" Without a benchmark, "obvious improvement" is also "unmeasured claim."

Verification Requirements

• Baseline measured (p50/p95/p99) before any changes
• Profiler output reviewed to identify actual bottleneck
• Benchmark written before optimization
• Improvement measured and quantified (not "feels faster")
• Test suite passes after optimization