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Engineering5 minSeptember 28, 2025

Performance budgets: the non-negotiable feature

Speed is a feature, not a metric. Here's how we set, enforce and defend performance budgets on every build.

Why budgets matter

Without a budget, performance regresses. Every new third-party script, every unoptimized image, every unused dependency adds up. A budget makes performance a decision, not a hope — and it's enforced in CI, not discovered in production.

What we measure

We set budgets for LCP, INP, CLS, total JS payload and Lighthouse score. Each budget is tailored to the project — a marketing site has different targets than a web app. Budgets are checked on every PR; a regression fails the build.

The 90+ Lighthouse target

90+ Lighthouse is achievable on most projects with discipline: edge rendering, lazy loading, responsive images in WebP/AVIF, minimal JS, and no render-blocking third parties. It's not magic — it's a series of small, consistent decisions.

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