Your build has a budget. Here is how to set it
One number in CI does more for performance than any audit you run by hand. A two-week plan for teams whose scope keeps moving.
A performance budget is not a target. It is a tripwire. Its whole job is to make somebody notice on the pull request that added the weight, rather than in the quarterly review three months later.
Two weeks, start to finish
- Week one: measure, do not enforce.Record the numbers on every build. Change nothing. You are looking for the normal range.
- Week two: set the tripwire above today.Ten per cent above the current worst build. It should not fire yet.
- Then ratchet.Every time you make a real improvement, lower the number to just above the new normal.
Set it above where you are, not where you wish you were
A budget that fails on the first pull request gets switched off in a week. One that fires four times a year gets respected.
{
"budgets": [
{ "path": "/", "javascript": 180, "css": 40 },
{ "path": "/checkout", "javascript": 240, "css": 40 }
]
}Budget starter with the ratchet scriptJSON and shell, 6 KBDownload Budget starter with the ratchet script