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Performance Budget Playbook for Content Sites

The budget thresholds and workflow checks we used to keep a content-heavy website feeling instant.

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08 Jan 2026 - 1 min read

PerformanceWebNext.js

Performance budgets only work when they are tied to release criteria.

We set a hard budget for JavaScript, image weight, and layout shift. Any change over budget required a visible tradeoff note in the pull request.

Budget checks

  • JavaScript budget: route-level client bundle under 170 KB compressed.
  • Image budget: hero image under 180 KB and all thumbnails under 60 KB.
  • Runtime budget: interaction-ready in under 2.5 seconds on mid-range mobile.

By making performance a product metric, not just an engineering metric, it stayed healthy over time.

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