performance-readiness

Most launch-day slowness comes from a handful of avoidable things: a 4 MB hero PNG, five font files, a chat widget and two trackers on the first paint. Fix those. Deep tuning is a separate project.

Activate when

• Any public page before launch, or the site feels slow on a phone.
• production-all routes here (check 40).
• Not for load testing, server capacity, or database performance.

Inspect

1. Asset and markup sweep (paths relative to this skill's folder; production build, served with compression if possible):

   node scripts/audit-assets.mjs --url <site> --render
   node scripts/audit-assets.mjs --dir ./dist          # static sizes
   node scripts/observe-runtime.mjs --url <site> --viewport 375x812 --block-third-party   # request counts per snapshot, console/request failures

   Findings: ASSET_OVERSIZED_IMAGE/JS/CSS/FONT, RENDER_BLOCKING_SCRIPT, MANY_THIRD_PARTY_ORIGINS, EXTERNAL_FONT_HOST, FONT_DISPLAY_NOT_SWAP, MANY_FONT_FAMILIES, IMG_NO_DIMENSIONS, IMG_NOT_LAZY, PAGE_WEIGHT_HIGH.

2. Look at what matters most:
   • Images: oversized dimensions vs displayed size; PNG photos that should be WebP/AVIF; no responsive srcset/sizes; hero image not prioritized (fetchpriority="high", priority in next/image) while below-the-fold images are not lazy; images without width/height (layout shift).
   • JavaScript: large bundles (check build output stats: next build size table, vite build report, source-map-explorer); whole libraries imported for one function (moment, lodash, icon packs); server-only code in the client; unnecessary client components; hydration of static content; heavy above-the-fold JS.
   • CSS/fonts: unused CSS frameworks shipped whole, too many font families/weights, no font-display: swap, external font hosts (self-hosting fonts removes a request and a third party: third-party-privacy).
   • Blocking resources: synchronous scripts and stylesheets in <head>; late-discovered critical resources; missing preconnect for unavoidable third parties.
   • Third parties: tag managers, chat widgets, replay, ads loaded eagerly; defer until interaction or consent.
   • Compression and caching: gzip/brotli on text assets; long-lived Cache-Control with hashed filenames; CDN for static assets (deployment layer: UNKNOWN locally).
   • Video/animation: autoplaying large video; heavy scroll animations; lottie/three.js on marketing pages.
3. Optional lab measurement, if Lighthouse is available locally, on a production build with throttling, as lab data only. Do not install heavy tooling just for this; the helper signals suffice for a launch pass.
4. Mobile emphasis: test at 375px on a throttled connection profile if available; the first screen should be usable quickly.

Evidence that counts

Label each claim OBSERVED, SOURCE-INDICATED, DECLARED, INFERRED, UNKNOWN, or REVIEW REQUIRED. UNKNOWN is never a pass and never a failure.

• Measured sizes of served assets: OBSERVED for that build and server. Local dev servers skip compression and caching; production behavior is UNKNOWN until the deployed URL is measured.
• Lab numbers are not field performance. Never state LCP/INP/CLS values you did not measure, and never predict them.
• A "heavy" dependency is SOURCE-INDICATED cost until you measure its bundle contribution.

May change

Resize/compress/convert images (keep originals); add width/height, loading="lazy", srcset, priority for the hero; defer/async scripts; dynamic import heavy components; replace a heavy library with a lighter or native equivalent when trivial; self-host and subset fonts with font-display: swap; remove unused CSS/JS and unused dependencies (with the owner's confirmation); lazy-load third parties. Do not rewrite architecture, remove features, or change visible design without asking.

Must not claim

"Fast", "optimized", "will score N", "passes Core Web Vitals". Report before/after sizes and counts, and what was measured where.

Verify

Rebuild and re-run audit-assets on the same pages: oversized items resolved, blocking scripts fewer, total referenced weight lower; visually check that images still look right at desktop and 375px and nothing broke; confirm no layout shift from resized images.

Escalate

Poor performance rooted in architecture (heavy SPA hydration, chatty APIs, slow backend), large media libraries, or performance-critical products: deeper profiling beyond this pass; recommend field measurement (RUM) after launch.

No change is valid when

Assets are reasonably sized, nothing blocks render unnecessarily, and third parties are limited. Do not micro-optimize a healthy page.