| name | core-verify-performance-verification |
| description | Use when proving performance targets are met before ship — continuous performance tests in the sprint cycle so code can't silently regress, load testing against stated conditions, and metric gates derived from the NFR criteria. |
Performance Verification
Checking the budgets from core-foundations-performance-values before ship. Adapted from
the performance-engineering process discipline
(DX) and the Microsoft Playbook's
performance testing
/ load testing
pages.
Areas under consideration
Skill
Verify against the stated criteria, continuously
Every performance NFR from core-setup-scoping-and-requirements maps to a test here — an
NFR without a verification method will not survive contact with a deadline. Verification
runs inside regular sprints, not once before launch, so new code cannot silently
regress the targets; a performance regression is a failing test, handled like one.
Test under the load conditions the requirement names
The requirement says "500 ms under normal load, 1 s at peak" — so test at normal and
peak. Load tests validate throughput floors and response-time ceilings at target
concurrency; stress tests find where degradation stops being graceful (the
stability/fault-tolerance characteristic — a system that collapses at 1.2× peak fails
verification even if it passes at 1×). Capacity math comes from measured per-request
cost, not guesses.
When something is slow: measure, don't hypothesize
Baseline first (profiler, timing harness, query plan), then bisect — the same
measure-first discipline as the performance branch of the diagnosis loop in
core-operate-maintenance. Fix the bottleneck the profile names, re-run, compare against
baseline.
The gate feeds forward
Ship gates green (core-ship-launch-checklist performance section: Web Vitals "Good", no
N+1 on critical paths, budgets met), and the same criteria become the production
monitoring thresholds in core-operate-observability — verification and monitoring are
one promise checked in two places.
