Performance & Benchmarks

Docboot is designed for predictable, fast incremental compilation on standard developer workstations and CI runners.

Compilation Pipeline Architecture #

Rather than executing heavy full-page re-evaluations, Docboot isolates Markdown parsing and syntax highlighting into atomic, content-addressable cache artifacts:

Markdown Source (.md)
         ↓
 SHA-256 Source Hash
         ↓
    Cache Lookup
    ├── HIT  ──► Load compiled artifact directly from .docboot/cache/
    └── MISS ──► Parse AST + Prism syntax highlighting + extract metadata
                      ↓
                  Store in cache
                      ↓
              Assemble Static HTML & Asset Bundle
                      ↓
                    dist/

Unchanged files bypass Markdown parsing, Prism highlighting, and heading extraction.
Changed files re-compile in isolation, keeping incremental rebuilds fast even in multi-hundred page repositories.

Measured Performance #

All metrics are measured in cold, warm, and incremental compilation states:

Dataset Scale	Cold Build (No Cache)	Warm Build (100% Cache Hit)	Single-Page Rebuild	Search Index Size
10 Pages (Small project)	~140 ms	~18 ms	~12 ms	~8 KB
100 Pages (Medium library)	~480 ms	~45 ms	~24 ms	~65 KB
500 Pages (Large framework)	~1.8 s	~120 ms	~42 ms	~280 KB

Measured on an Apple Silicon workstation running Node.js v24.

Client Bundle Weights #

Docboot outputs lightweight client assets that minimize initial page load and bandwidth:

Asset	Raw Size	Compressed (gzip / brotli)	Loading Strategy
`docs.css` (Design tokens & stylesheet)	~25 KB	~5.2 KB	Initial Page Load
`docs.js` (Router, Tabs, Lightbox)	~18 KB	~4.8 KB	Deferred
`search-runtime.js` (MiniSearch)	~14 KB	~4.1 KB	On-Demand (`Cmd + K`)
`search-index.json`	Depends on doc volume	~3–30 KB	On-Demand (`Cmd + K`)
`mermaid.min.js`	~80 KB	~24 KB	On-Demand (Only on pages with diagrams)

Measured Benchmark Environment #

The performance metrics above were captured under the following reproducible benchmark conditions:

Machine:     Apple Silicon (M3 Pro)
OS:          macOS Sonoma 14.x
Node.js:     v24.19.0
Docboot:     v0.2.x
Fixtures:    Synthesized markdown files with frontmatter, 2 code blocks, 4 headings, and links
Timing:      High-resolution wall-clock duration via performance.now()

Definitions #

Cold Build: Fresh compilation with an empty cache directory (docboot build --clean).
Warm Build: Unmodified rebuild where all unchanged compiled artifacts are retrieved from .docboot/cache/.
Incremental Rebuild: A single Markdown file is modified while all unaffected page artifacts are reused from the build cache.

Supported & Tested Environments #

Docboot's test suite and compiler are continuously verified across the following platforms:

Operating Systems: macOS (Apple Silicon / Intel), Ubuntu Linux 22.04+ (GitHub Actions CI), Windows 11 (WSL2 / PowerShell)
Node.js Runtimes: Node.js v20.x LTS, v22.x LTS, v24.x
Package Managers: npm, pnpm, yarn, bun

Reproducing Benchmarks Locally #

You can run Docboot's internal benchmark suite locally:

BASH

git clone https://github.com/litepacks/docboot.git
cd docboot
npm install
npm run benchmark

Next Steps #

Architecture & Runtime — Build pipeline and runtime model
Incremental Build Cache — Cache mechanics and invalidation
Docboot Stats — Inspecting your project's metrics