Improve build times

Build time optimization with Runbooks involves systematically analyzing your build processes, identifying performance bottlenecks, and implementing proven optimization strategies. Unlike manual optimization that requires deep expertise in build tools, Runbooks can automatically detect inefficiencies and apply industry best practices across your entire build pipeline.

When to use

Ideal scenarios

• Slow Development Builds: Local development builds taking too long

• CI/CD Pipeline Bottlenecks: Deployment pipelines causing development delays

• Large Codebase Builds: Monorepo or large applications with complex build requirements

• Multi-Environment Builds: Different optimization needs for dev, staging, and production

• Team Productivity Issues: Build times impacting developer workflow

Perfect for teams that

• Experience frequent build delays in development

• Have complex build pipelines with multiple steps

• Need to optimize CI/CD costs and execution time

• Want to improve developer experience and productivity

• Manage large codebases with growing build complexity

Available build optimization templates

Frontend build optimization templates

Webpack bundle optimization

• Implements code splitting at route and component levels

• Adds dynamic imports for large dependencies

• Optimizes vendor bundle splitting and caching

• Implements tree shaking and dead code elimination

Docker build optimization

• Multi-stage build implementation for smaller images

• Layer caching optimization for faster rebuilds

• Build context optimization to reduce transfer times

• Parallel build strategies for complex applications

TypeScript compilation optimization

• Incremental compilation setup

• Project references for monorepo optimization

• Build cache implementation and management

• Parallel type checking and compilation

CI/CD pipeline templates

Build artifact sharing

• Implements build artifact caching across pipeline stages

• Optimizes artifact storage and retrieval

• Reduces duplicate work in multi-stage pipelines

• Implements smart invalidation strategies

Distributed build systems

• Sets up distributed compilation for large codebases

• Implements build result sharing across developers

• Optimizes resource allocation for build workers

• Adds build time monitoring and optimization

Conditional build execution

• Implements change detection for selective builds

• Adds path-based build triggers

• Optimizes test execution based on code changes

• Implements smart dependency analysis

Without using template

1. Build performance analysis

Start by describing your build performance issues:

"Our React application build takes 15 minutes in CI and 8 minutes locally. The webpack build seems to be the bottleneck, and our developers are frustrated with long feedback cycles. We need to optimize both local development and production builds."

What Runbooks does:

• Analyzes your webpack configuration and build output

• Identifies bundle size and dependency issues

• Reviews build pipeline stages and timing

• Creates a comprehensive optimization strategy

2. Bottleneck identification

Runbooks performs deep analysis to identify:

• Bundle analysis: Large dependencies and duplicate code

• Build stage timing: Which stages take the most time

• Cache utilization: Opportunities for improved caching

• Parallelization: Tasks that can run concurrently

• Resource usage: CPU, memory, and I/O bottlenecks

3. Optimization strategy planning

The AI creates a prioritized optimization plan:

• Quick Wins: Immediate improvements with minimal risk

• Medium-term Improvements: More complex optimizations

• Long-term Architecture: Fundamental build system improvements

• Monitoring Setup: Tracking and maintaining optimization gains

4. Implementation and validation

Runbooks implements optimizations systematically:

• Makes one optimization at a time for easy rollback

• Measures performance improvement after each change

• Validates that functionality remains intact

• Documents optimization techniques for future reference

Real-world build optimization examples

Example 1: Webpack bundle optimization

Before optimization:

// Single large bundle taking 8 minutes to build
module.exports = {
  entry: './src/index.js',
  output: {
    filename: 'bundle.js',
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist'),
  },
  // No optimization configuration
};

After runbooks optimization:

module.exports = {
  entry: './src/index.js',
  output: {
    filename: '[name].[contenthash].js',
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist'),
    clean: true,
  },
  optimization: {
    splitChunks: {
      chunks: 'all',
      cacheGroups: {
        vendor: {
          test: /[\\/]node_modules[\\/]/,
          name: 'vendors',
          chunks: 'all',
        },
        common: {
          name: 'common',
          minChunks: 2,
          chunks: 'all',
          enforce: true,
        },
      },
    },
  },
  cache: {
    type: 'filesystem',
    buildDependencies: {
      config: [__filename],
    },
  },
};

Results: Build time reduced from 8 minutes to 2 minutes locally, 15 minutes to 4 minutes in CI.

Example 2: Docker build optimization

Before optimization:

FROM node:16
COPY . /app
WORKDIR /app
RUN npm install
RUN npm run build
CMD ["npm", "start"]

After Runbooks optimization:

# Multi-stage build for optimization
FROM node:16-alpine AS dependencies
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci --only=production && npm cache clean --force

FROM node:16-alpine AS build
WORKDIR /app
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm ci
COPY . .
RUN npm run build

FROM node:16-alpine AS runtime
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=dependencies /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY --from=build /app/dist ./dist
COPY package*.json ./
EXPOSE 3000
CMD ["npm", "start"]

Results: Docker build time reduced from 12 minutes to 3 minutes, image size reduced by 60%.

Example 3: CI/CD pipeline optimization

Before optimization:

# Sequential pipeline taking 25 minutes
jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - checkout: v2
      - run: npm install
      - run: npm run test
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm run build
      - run: npm run e2e-tests

After runbooks optimization:

# Parallel pipeline with caching
jobs:
  setup:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - checkout: v2
      - uses: actions/cache@v2
        with:
          path: ~/.npm
          key: ${{ runner.os }}-node-${{ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') }}
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run build
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2
        with:
          name: build-files
          path: dist/

  test:
    needs: setup
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      matrix:
        test-type: [unit, integration, lint]
    steps:
      - checkout: v2
      - uses: actions/download-artifact@v2
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run ${{ matrix.test-type }}

  e2e:
    needs: setup
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - checkout: v2
      - uses: actions/download-artifact@v2
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run e2e-tests

Results: Pipeline time reduced from 25 minutes to 8 minutes through parallelization and caching.

Technology-specific optimizations

React/javascript optimizations

Bundle size optimization:

• Code splitting implementation at route and component levels

• Dynamic imports for large third-party libraries

• Tree shaking configuration for unused code elimination

• Webpack bundle analyzer integration for ongoing monitoring

Development server optimization:

• Hot module replacement optimization

• Development build caching

• Faster refresh configuration

• Memory usage optimization

TypeScript project optimization

Compilation speed improvements:

• Project references for large codebases

• Incremental compilation setup

• Build tool integration optimization

• Type checking parallelization

Docker and container optimization

Multi-stage build optimization:

• Dependency caching layers

• Build context optimization

• Layer ordering for maximum cache reuse

• Image size optimization techniques

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See also

• Flaky test resolution

• Improving code coverage