Not on my watch! Catching Web Performance disasters in CI
Performance is a feature, yet it's often the first thing to break. Have you ever shipped a 'perfect' update, only to find your metrics tanked in production? Fixing regressions after deployment is a costly, manual nightmare that burns time and kills conversion.
Stop playing whack-a-mole with your Core Web Vitals. In this session, we’ll move beyond manual checks and integrate automated performance testing directly into your CI pipeline. Learn how to catch bottlenecks before they hit your users, shift performance left, and transform your deployment process from a high-stakes gamble into a predictable, stress-free routine.
In this deep dive, we will explore the 'Not on my watch!' philosophy: building a robust, automated defense against performance regressions. We will cover:
- The architectural impact of performance drift in modern web stacks.
- How to implement automated performance gates within CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, Lighthouse CI, and Lighthouse CL Server.
- Distinguishing between 'lab data' and 'real-user data' when setting up automated thresholds.
- Reducing friction in the developer experience: giving feedback early enough to prevent bad code from ever reaching the main branch.
Attendees will leave with a clear, actionable framework to set up their own testing infrastructure, minimize production incidents, and foster a culture of performance-first development.
Estela is a Senior Technical Architect in Web Performance at Shopify, where she helps merchants build faster and more performant experiences for their customers. Deeply involved in the global tech community, Estela is an international speaker, the co-founder of #MujeresEnSEO, and a co-organizer of PerformanceObserver.dev. She is dedicated to sharing technical knowledge and advocating for more diversity in the industry. When she isn’t debugging JavaScript issues, she is usually on a mission to find the city’s perfect latte macchiato or practicing her own "high-performance" sprinting while chasing her children through the park.