Performance

Performance optimization

Deep performance optimization based on Lighthouse performance audits. Focuses on loading speed, runtime efficiency, and resource optimization.

How it works

1. Identify performance bottlenecks in code and assets
2. Prioritize by impact on Core Web Vitals
3. Provide specific optimizations with code examples
4. Measure improvement with before/after metrics

Performance budget

| Resource | Budget | Rationale | |----------|--------|-----------| | Total page weight | ; rel=preload; as=image (and similar for critical CSS/fonts) so the browser starts fetching before the 200 OK` lands. Cloudflare reports 20–30% LCP improvements on image-heavy pages. Requires HTTP/2+ and is supported by Chromium-based browsers; other browsers ignore the 103 and fall through to the 200 — safe to enable. CDNs (Cloudflare, Fastly, Akamai) can synthesize 103s automatically from prior responses; on your own origin, emit them from the same handler that issues the 200.

Resource loading

Preconnect to required origins:

Preload critical resources:

Prerender likely-next navigations with the Speculation Rules API:

{
  "prerender": [{
    "where": { "href_matches": "/*" },
    "eagerness": "moderate"
  }]
}

moderate triggers after a ~200ms hover — usually intent-correlated, rarely wasted. See [core-web-vitals → LCP](../core-web-vitals/SKILL.md#lcp-largest-contentful-paint) for the full discussion of eagerness tradeoffs and the prerenderingchange gating you'll need for analytics.

Defer non-critical CSS:

/* Above-fold styles */

JavaScript optimization

Defer non-essential scripts:

Code splitting patterns:

// Route-based splitting
const Dashboard = lazy(() => import('./Dashboard'));

// Component-based splitting
const HeavyChart = lazy(() => import('./HeavyChart'));

// Feature-based splitting
if (user.isPremium) {
  const PremiumFeatures = await import('./PremiumFeatures');
}

Tree shaking best practices:

// ❌ Imports entire library
import _ from 'lodash';
_.debounce(fn, 300);

// ✅ Imports only what's needed
import debounce from 'lodash/debounce';
debounce(fn, 300);

Image optimization

Format selection

| Format | Use case | Browser support | |--------|----------|-----------------| | AVIF | Photos, best compression | 92%+ | | WebP | Photos, good fallback | 97%+ | | PNG | Graphics with transparency | Universal | | SVG | Icons, logos, illustrations | Universal |

Responsive images

LCP image priority

Font optimization

Loading strategy

/* System font stack as fallback */
body {
  font-family: 'Custom Font', -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 
               'Segoe UI', Roboto, sans-serif;
}

/* Prevent invisible text */
@font-face {
  font-family: 'Custom Font';
  src: url('/fonts/custom.woff2') format('woff2');
  font-display: swap; /* or optional for non-critical */
  font-weight: 400;
  font-style: normal;
  unicode-range: U+0000-00FF; /* Subset to Latin */
}

Preloading critical fonts

Variable fonts

/* One file instead of multiple weights */
@font-face {
  font-family: 'Inter';
  src: url('/fonts/Inter-Variable.woff2') format('woff2-variations');
  font-weight: 100 900;
  font-display: swap;
}

Caching strategy

Cache-Control headers

# HTML (short or no cache)
Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate

# Static assets with hash (immutable)
Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000, immutable

# Static assets without hash
Cache-Control: public, max-age=86400, stale-while-revalidate=604800

# API responses
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0, must-revalidate

Service worker caching

// Cache-first for static assets
self.addEventListener('fetch', (event) => {
  if (event.request.destination === 'image' ||
      event.request.destination === 'style' ||
      event.request.destination === 'script') {
    event.respondWith(
      caches.match(event.request).then((cached) => {
        return cached || fetch(event.request).then((response) => {
          const clone = response.clone();
          caches.open('static-v1').then((cache) => cache.put(event.request, clone));
          return response;
        });
      })
    );
  }
});

Runtime performance

Avoid layout thrashing

// ❌ Forces multiple reflows
elements.forEach(el => {
  const height = el.offsetHeight; // Read
  el.style.height = height + 10 + 'px'; // Write
});

// ✅ Batch reads, then batch writes
const heights = elements.map(el => el.offsetHeight); // All reads
elements.forEach((el, i) => {
  el.style.height = heights[i] + 10 + 'px'; // All writes
});

Debounce expensive operations

function debounce(fn, delay) {
  let timeout;
  return (...args) => {
    clearTimeout(timeout);
    timeout = setTimeout(() => fn(...args), delay);
  };
}

// Debounce scroll/resize handlers
window.addEventListener('scroll', debounce(handleScroll, 100));

Use requestAnimationFrame

// ❌ May cause jank
setInterval(animate, 16);

// ✅ Synced with display refresh
function animate() {
  // Animation logic
  requestAnimationFrame(animate);
}
requestAnimationFrame(animate);

Virtualize long lists

// For lists > 100 items, render only visible items
// Use libraries like react-window, vue-virtual-scroller, or native CSS:
.virtual-list {
  content-visibility: auto;
  contain-intrinsic-size: 0 50px; /* Estimated item height */
}

Smooth navigations with View Transitions

The View Transitions API lets the browser cross-fade (or custom-animate) between two DOM states using a single GPU-composited snapshot — no double-render, no layout thrash, and the snapshot doesn't count toward CLS.

Same-document (SPA-style) — Baseline 2026:

// Wrap the DOM mutation that swaps the view
function navigate(newView) {
  if (!document.startViewTransition) return swapDOM(newView);
  document.startViewTransition(() => swapDOM(newView));
}

Cross-document (MPA-style) — Chromium-stable, progressive enhancement elsewhere:

/* On both source and destination pages */
@view-transition { navigation: auto; }

That's the entire integration — same-origin navigations now fade automatically. To opt specific elements into shared-element transitions (e.g. a thumbnail expanding into a hero), give them a matching view-transition-name:

.product-thumb[data-id="42"], .product-hero { view-transition-name: product-42; }

Pair this with Speculation Rules (above) for instant + animated navigations.

Third-party scripts

Load strategies

// ❌ Blocks main thread

// ✅ Async loading

// ✅ Delay until interaction

document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', () => {
  const observer = new IntersectionObserver((entries) => {
    if (entries[0].isIntersecting) {
      const script = document.createElement('script');
      script.src = 'https://widget.example.com/embed.js';
      document.body.appendChild(script);
      observer.disconnect();
    }
  });
  observer.observe(document.querySelector('#widget-container'));
});

Facade pattern

  
  ▶

Measurement

Key metrics

| Metric | Target | Tool | |--------|--------|------| | LCP | < 2.5s | Lighthouse, CrUX | | FCP | < 1.8s | Lighthouse | | Speed Index | < 3.4s | Lighthouse | | TBT | < 200ms | Lighthouse | | TTI | < 3.8s | Lighthouse |

Testing commands

# Lighthouse CLI
npx lighthouse https://example.com --output html --output-path report.html

# Web Vitals library
import {onLCP, onINP, onCLS} from 'web-vitals';
onLCP(console.log);
onINP(console.log);
onCLS(console.log);

References

For Core Web Vitals specific optimizations, see [Core Web Vitals](../core-web-vitals/SKILL.md).

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: addyosmani
• Source: addyosmani/web-quality-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.