Fast Frontend

Performance Engineering from the Browser to the Backend.

This book targets senior frontend and full-stack engineers who have shipped a slow application, added a lazy load, and called it done. It never explains what a component is. It never defines what a network request is from scratch. The reader has a running web application with performance problems. This book gives them the tools to find, measure, fix, and prevent those problems before they reach production.

The through-line system is a content-heavy e-commerce platform: product listing pages, a product detail page with image galleries, a checkout flow, a real-time inventory dashboard, and a CMS-driven editorial section. The domain stresses every optimization in the book: LCP on image-heavy pages, INP on interactive checkout, bundle size on a large TypeScript codebase, API payload size on the dashboard, and SSR trade-offs on the editorial section.

Measure in the field, not just the lab. Performance budgets belong in the CI pipeline, not in a document nobody reads. Backend decisions are frontend performance decisions. Only optimize what shows up in field data. GraphQL is a selective win. These positions are stated in chapter 1 and enforced throughout.

This book was generated using AI assistance.