Backend Performance Optimization

Quick Guide: Optimize backend performance through database query optimization (indexes, prepared statements, avoiding N+1), caching strategies (cache-aside, write-through), connection pooling, and non-blocking async patterns. Always measure before optimizing -- run EXPLAIN ANALYZE, check event loop lag, and track cache hit rates before adding complexity.

---

<critical_requirements>

CRITICAL: Before Using This Skill

All code must follow project conventions in CLAUDE.md (kebab-case, named exports, import ordering, import type, named constants)

(You MUST always release database connections back to the pool using finally blocks)

(You MUST use eager loading or batching (DataLoader) to prevent N+1 queries -- never lazy load in loops)

(You MUST set TTL on all cached data to prevent stale data and memory exhaustion)

(You MUST offload CPU-intensive work to Worker Threads -- blocking the event loop degrades all requests)

</critical_requirements>

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Detailed Resources:

• examples/core.md - Database patterns: connection pooling, N+1 prevention, indexing, prepared statements, pagination
• examples/caching.md - Cache-aside, write-through, invalidation, key strategies, TTL guidance
• examples/async.md - Event loop optimization, worker threads, chunked processing, concurrency control
• reference.md - Decision frameworks, performance monitoring

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Auto-detection: connection pool, query optimization, database index, N+1, caching, cache invalidation, prepared statement, worker threads, event loop, CPU-bound, latency, throughput, performance tuning, EXPLAIN ANALYZE, keyset pagination, cache-aside, write-through

When to use:

• Database queries taking > 100ms
• High-traffic endpoints with repeated data fetches
• API responses with multiple related entities (N+1 risk)
• CPU-intensive operations blocking request handling
• Need to reduce database load via caching

When NOT to use:

• Premature optimization without measuring first
• Simple CRUD with low traffic (adds complexity without benefit)
• Data that changes frequently and must always be fresh (caching adds staleness)
• Development/debugging (caching obscures issues)

Key patterns covered:

• Database indexing strategies (composite, partial, covering)
• Connection pooling with guaranteed release
• N+1 query prevention (eager loading, DataLoader)
• Caching strategies (cache-aside, write-through, invalidation)
• Event loop optimization (async I/O, setImmediate chunking)
• Worker threads for CPU-bound operations
• Keyset pagination for large datasets

---

Philosophy

Backend performance optimization follows one core principle: measure first, optimize second. Premature optimization wastes development time and adds complexity without evidence of benefit.

The Three Pillars of Backend Performance:

1. Database Optimization - Indexes, query planning, N+1 prevention, pagination
2. Caching - Reduce repeated expensive operations with TTL-bounded cache
3. Async Efficiency - Never block the event loop

When to optimize:

• Response times exceed SLA thresholds
• Database CPU/memory approaching limits
• Metrics show specific bottlenecks (EXPLAIN ANALYZE, event loop lag)
• Load testing reveals scaling issues

When NOT to optimize:

• "It might be slow someday" (premature)
• Optimizing cold paths (rarely executed code)
• Before profiling identifies the actual bottleneck

---

Core Patterns

Pattern 1: Connection Pooling with Guaranteed Release

Connection pooling reuses database connections instead of creating new ones per request. A PostgreSQL handshake takes 20-30ms -- pooling eliminates this overhead.

Key rules:

• Use pool.query() for simple queries (auto-manages connection lifecycle)
• For transactions, manually checkout with pool.connect() and always release in finally
• Listen for pool errors (idle clients can still emit errors)

// Transaction with guaranteed connection release
async function createUserWithProfile(
  userData: UserData,
  profileData: ProfileData,
) {
  const client = await pool.connect();
  try {
    await client.query("BEGIN");
    const userResult = await client.query(
      "INSERT INTO users (name, email) VALUES ($1, $2) RETURNING id",
      [userData.name, userData.email],
    );
    await client.query("INSERT INTO profiles (user_id, bio) VALUES ($1, $2)", [
      userResult.rows[0].id,
      profileData.bio,
    ]);
    await client.query("COMMIT");
    return userResult.rows[0];
  } catch (error) {
    await client.query("ROLLBACK");
    throw error;
  } finally {
    client.release(); // CRITICAL: Always release back to pool
  }
}

Why good: finally guarantees connection release even on error, preventing pool exhaustion

See examples/core.md for full pool configuration, sizing formula, and external pooler guidance.

---

Pattern 2: N+1 Query Prevention

The N+1 problem occurs when fetching N records triggers N additional queries for related data. With 100 records, that's 101 database round-trips.

Two solutions:

1. Eager loading (ORM .with()) -- single query with JOINs for known relationships
2. DataLoader -- batches .load() calls into single query per tick, ideal for GraphQL

// Eager loading: single query fetches jobs + companies + skills
const jobs = await db.query.jobs.findMany({
  where: and(eq(jobs.isActive, true), isNull(jobs.deletedAt)),
  with: {
    company: { with: { locations: true } },
    jobSkills: { with: { skill: true } },
  },
});

// BAD: N+1 anti-pattern -- one query per job
for (const job of jobs) {
  job.company = await db.query.companies.findFirst({
    where: eq(companies.id, job.companyId),
  });
}

Why bad: 1 query for jobs + N queries for companies, latency grows linearly with data size

See examples/core.md for DataLoader batching pattern.

---

Pattern 3: Database Indexing

Indexes speed up queries by avoiding full table scans. Index columns used in WHERE, JOIN, and ORDER BY clauses.

// Strategic indexes on a table definition
export const jobs = pgTable(
  "jobs",
  {
    id: uuid("id").primaryKey().defaultRandom(),
    companyId: uuid("company_id").notNull(),
    country: varchar("country", { length: 100 }),
    employmentType: varchar("employment_type", { length: 50 }),
    isActive: boolean("is_active").default(true),
    createdAt: timestamp("created_at").defaultNow(),
    deletedAt: timestamp("deleted_at"),
  },
  (table) => [
    // Composite index for common filter combination
    index("jobs_country_employment_idx").on(
      table.country,
      table.employmentType,
    ),
    // Partial index -- only indexes active non-deleted jobs
    index("jobs_active_idx")
      .on(table.isActive, table.createdAt)
      .where(sql`${table.deletedAt} IS NULL`),
    // Foreign key index for JOIN performance
    index("jobs_company_id_idx").on(table.companyId),
  ],
);

Index Decision Framework:

Column Usage	Index Type	When to Use
WHERE equality	B-tree (default)	High-selectivity columns
WHERE range (>, <, BETWEEN)	B-tree	Date ranges, numeric ranges
WHERE multiple columns	Composite	Queries always filter by same columns together
WHERE on subset	Partial	Most queries filter on active/non-deleted
Full-text search	GIN/GiST	Text search with LIKE, tsvector
JSON field access	GIN	JSONB column queries

Composite index column order: Equality conditions first, range conditions last, high selectivity first.

See examples/core.md for EXPLAIN ANALYZE examples, index monitoring queries, and unused index detection.

---

Pattern 4: Cache-Aside with TTL

The most common caching pattern. Check cache first, fetch from database on miss, store with TTL.

const CACHE_TTL_SECONDS = 300;
const CACHE_PREFIX = "app:user";

async function getUserById(userId: string): Promise<User | null> {
  const cacheKey = `${CACHE_PREFIX}:${userId}`;
  const cached = await cacheClient.get(cacheKey);
  if (cached) return JSON.parse(cached) as User;

  const user = await db.query.users.findFirst({ where: eq(users.id, userId) });
  if (!user) return null;

  await cacheClient.set(cacheKey, JSON.stringify(user), {
    EX: CACHE_TTL_SECONDS,
  });
  return user;
}

Why good: TTL prevents stale data accumulation, namespaced keys prevent collisions, early return on cache hit

See examples/caching.md for write-through, tag-based invalidation, key strategies, and TTL guidance.

---

Pattern 5: Worker Threads for CPU-Bound Operations

Node.js uses a single thread for JavaScript. CPU-intensive work blocks ALL concurrent requests.

Rule of thumb:

CPU Duration	Solution	Rationale
< 50ms	Keep on main thread	Worker overhead not worth it
50-500ms	setImmediate chunking	Yields to event loop between chunks
> 500ms	Worker Threads	Offload completely to separate thread

// Chunked processing with setImmediate -- yields to event loop between batches
const CHUNK_SIZE = 100;

async function processLargeArray(items: Item[]): Promise<ProcessedItem[]> {
  const results: ProcessedItem[] = [];
  for (let i = 0; i < items.length; i += CHUNK_SIZE) {
    const chunk = items.slice(i, i + CHUNK_SIZE);
    for (const item of chunk) {
      results.push(expensiveTransform(item));
    }
    if (i + CHUNK_SIZE < items.length) {
      await new Promise((resolve) => setImmediate(resolve));
    }
  }
  return results;
}

See examples/async.md for worker pool implementation, concurrency control with p-limit, and event loop lag monitoring.

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Pattern 6: Keyset Pagination for Large Datasets

OFFSET pagination scans all previous rows -- at OFFSET 100,000 the database reads and discards 100,000 rows. Keyset pagination uses a cursor for constant-time performance.

-- BAD: OFFSET scans all previous rows
SELECT * FROM products ORDER BY id LIMIT 20 OFFSET 100000;

-- GOOD: Keyset pagination -- constant time regardless of position
SELECT * FROM products
WHERE id > :last_seen_id
ORDER BY id LIMIT 20;

When to use offset: Small datasets (< 100k rows), need total count, random page access required.

When to use keyset: Large datasets, infinite scroll, real-time data where inserts shouldn't cause duplicates.

See examples/core.md for full TypeScript implementations of both patterns.

---

<red_flags>

RED FLAGS

High Priority Issues:

• Missing connection release -- connections never returned to pool cause pool exhaustion and application hangs
• N+1 queries in loops -- fetching related data one-by-one instead of eager loading destroys performance
• Blocking event loop -- synchronous I/O or CPU-intensive work blocks all concurrent requests
• Cache without TTL -- unbounded cache grows until memory exhaustion or serves infinitely stale data
• Full table scans on large tables -- missing indexes on WHERE/JOIN columns

Medium Priority Issues:

• No index on foreign keys -- JOINs and ON DELETE CASCADE become slow
• Over-indexing -- every index slows writes; remove unused indexes with pg_stat_user_indexes
• Cache key collisions -- generic keys cause wrong data returned to wrong users
• Offset pagination on large tables -- OFFSET scans all previous rows; use keyset pagination
• Unbounded parallelism -- Promise.all on 10,000 items overwhelms downstream services

Gotchas & Edge Cases:

• EXPLAIN shows estimates; EXPLAIN ANALYZE shows actual -- always use ANALYZE for real performance data
• Composite index (a, b) does NOT help queries filtering only on b -- column order matters
• Applying functions to indexed columns (e.g., YEAR(created_at)) prevents index use -- rewrite as range conditions
• DataLoader caches within request -- don't reuse across requests or you get stale data
• Worker threads have ~30ms startup overhead -- don't use for fast operations
• Connection pool idleTimeoutMillis can cause "connection terminated unexpectedly" if set too short
• SELECT * fetches unnecessary data and prevents covering index optimization -- select specific columns
• Cache SET with EX option replaces existing TTL -- calling SET again resets expiration timer

</red_flags>

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<critical_reminders>

CRITICAL REMINDERS

All code must follow project conventions in CLAUDE.md

(You MUST always release database connections back to the pool using finally blocks)

(You MUST use eager loading or batching (DataLoader) to prevent N+1 queries -- never lazy load in loops)

(You MUST set TTL on all cached data to prevent stale data and memory exhaustion)

(You MUST offload CPU-intensive work to Worker Threads -- blocking the event loop degrades all requests)

Failure to follow these rules will cause connection pool exhaustion, N+1 performance degradation, memory leaks from unbounded caches, and blocked event loops affecting all concurrent requests.

</critical_reminders>