hermes-agent/apps/desktop/scripts/perf
Brooklyn Nicholson edadfcae96 perf(desktop): stop every zone subscribing to the whole layout tree
TreeGroup called useStore($layoutTree) to build its right-click menu's
move/split directions. That subscribes every zone — and therefore every
mounted pane and its entire transcript — to the whole layout tree. A sash
drag rewrites the tree once per frame, so dragging the sidebar re-rendered
all five tiles' message lists on every pointermove, for a context menu
nobody had open.

The directions are only read when the menu renders, so read the tree there
with .get() instead. Same lazy shape the neighbouring `closable` prop
already uses.

Measured over one 60px sash drag with five busy tiles:

  commits          83 -> 12
  ChatView        150 -> 10   (4465ms -> 353ms)
  AuiProvider    9450 -> 630  (9868ms -> 774ms)
  TreeGroup       180 -> 12
  TreeSplit        90 ->  6

Also fixes an observer effect in the harness: idle-cost recorded render
attribution *during* the timed gesture, and the counter walks the fiber
tree on every commit. That was large enough to hide this 15x reduction
behind an unchanged fps, so timing and attribution are separate passes now
and `record` defaults off.

Adds scripts/diag-drag-churn.mjs — the probe that found this. It reports
the transcript chain (who above the messages re-rendered) plus every atom
that notified, which is what named TreeGroup instead of leaving it to be
guessed at. Notably the atom list came back EMPTY: this was never store
churn, so the render-attribution path was the only thing that could have
found it.
2026-07-26 16:53:20 -05:00
..
lib bench(desktop): measure representative (warm-cache) cold start (#67733) 2026-07-19 23:21:45 +00:00
scenarios perf(desktop): stop every zone subscribing to the whole layout tree 2026-07-26 16:53:20 -05:00
baseline.json bench(desktop): measure representative (warm-cache) cold start (#67733) 2026-07-19 23:21:45 +00:00
README.md feat(desktop): render-churn perf scenario 2026-07-26 06:11:00 -05:00
run.mjs bench(desktop): measure representative (warm-cache) cold start (#67733) 2026-07-19 23:21:45 +00:00
serve.mjs bench(desktop): systematized perf harness; sunset 12 one-off scripts (#67466) 2026-07-19 07:41:00 -04:00

Desktop perf harness

One systematized way to measure desktop rendering/interaction performance, diff it against a committed baseline, and fail on regressions. It replaces the dozen one-off measure-* / profile-* scripts that each reinvented the CDP client, arg parsing, stats, and output (and never had a baseline).

Quick start

# Isolated instance (recommended) — no running app or LLM credits needed.
# Its own --user-data-dir + HERMES_HOME means it never collides with `hgui`.
npm run perf -- --spawn

# Or: launch an isolated instance once, attach repeatedly (faster iteration).
npm run perf:serve            # leaves an instance on :9222
npm run perf                  # attaches, runs the CI suite, gates on baseline

# One scenario, with a CPU profile:
npm run perf -- stream --cpuprofile --tokens 800

# Representative PRODUCTION numbers (minified React, not the ~3x-slower dev build):
npm run perf -- cold-start stream keystroke transcript --spawn --prod

# Re-capture the baseline on your reference device, then commit baseline.json:
npm run perf -- cold-start stream keystroke transcript --spawn --prod --update-baseline

Dev vs prod

By default the harness measures the dev renderer (fast to spin up, good for relative regression checks). Pass --prod (with --spawn) to build a production renderer with the probe included (VITE_PERF_PROBE=1) and measure minified React — the representative shipped numbers. The committed baseline is captured with --prod.

Why isolation matters

The measurement this harness exists to run was historically blocked: a running hgui holds the Electron single-instance lock, so a second instance quit immediately. --spawn / perf:serve launch with their own --user-data-dir (separate lock scope), their own HERMES_HOME (separate backend + sessions), and their own --remote-debugging-port. Synthetic scenarios drive $messages directly via window.__PERF_DRIVE__, so no LLM credits are spent.

Scenarios

scenario tier measures replaces
stream ci streaming longtasks, frame p95/p99, mutation cadence measure-synthetic-stream, profile-synth-stream, profile-long-stream
stream --real backend same, from a real LLM stream measure-real-stream, profile-real-stream
keystroke ci composer keystroke → paint latency measure-latency, profile-typing, leak-typing
transcript ci large-transcript mount + paint cost (new)
render-churn ci per-component render attribution + store churn while N tabs stream (new)
cold-start cold launch → CDP → driver → first paint (fresh spawn/run) (new)
first-token backend Enter → first assistant token painted (TTFT) (new)
submit backend Enter → cleared → user msg painted, scroll jump measure-submit, measure-jump
session-switch backend route → first-paint → settle profile-session-switch
profile-switch backend rail click → sidebar settled measure-profile-switch

ci + cold scenarios need no backend/credits and are gated against baseline.json (cold-start requires --spawn since it measures a fresh launch, and must be run in its own invocation). backend scenarios need a live backend (and --spawn or a real session/credits) and are report-only.

CPU profiling is a cross-cutting --cpuprofile flag on any scenario (it wraps the run in Profiler.start/stop and prints a top-self-time table), replacing every standalone profile-* script.

Adding a scenario

Create scenarios/<name>.mjs exporting { name, tier, description, run(cdp, opts) } where run returns { metrics, detail } (metrics = flat numbers, lower is better), then register it in scenarios/index.mjs. If it's ci, add a baseline.json entry (or run --update-baseline).

Layout

  • lib/cdp.mjs — the one CDP client + target discovery + typing + CPU-profile wrapper + DOM selectors.
  • lib/stats.mjs — percentiles, histograms, CPU-profile self-time ranking.
  • lib/baseline.mjs — load/compare/update the baseline + regression gate.
  • lib/launch.mjs — attach, or spawn a fully isolated instance.
  • scenarios/ — one module per measurement.
  • run.mjs — entrypoint. serve.mjs — standalone isolated launcher.

Not migrated (kept as dev utilities)

eval.mjs, reload.mjs, reload-renderer.mjs, probe-renderer.mjs, probe-thread.mjs, click-session.mjs, diag-*.mjs are interactive dev helpers, not benchmarks. They can adopt lib/cdp.mjs in a follow-up.