Asking Cursor to Review My Blog for Performance
TLDR Dev
A developer used Cursor, an AI-powered code editor, to review their Eleventy-based blog codebase of nearly seven thousand files and discovered several performance issues. The tool identified that RSS calls to a defunct Mastodon server were timing out after 70 seconds, that a glob operation for copying Markdown files was processing 6000+ files on every local change instead of respecting build ignore rules, and that local API call bypasses could be improved. After implementing Cursor's suggested fixes, local build times improved to 0.33 seconds from several seconds per change.
Why it matters
A performance review of a blog built with the Eleventy static site generator showed several inefficiencies, including unnecessary network requests to a now-defunct Mastodon server and excessive file copying during builds. Recommendations for improving performance include optimizing the handling of external API calls, refining the build process to only include relevant files, and addressing specific coding practices that contribute to build delays.
