perf(desktop): cut FadeText forced layouts during streaming

The slowest user-felt path is typing into the composer while the
assistant is streaming. Profile (scripts/profile-under-stream.mjs):

  FadeText measureOverflow self time:  35.8 ms → 18.1 ms  (-50%)
  total active CPU during 7s window:   ~150 ms → ~50 ms

Two changes in src/components/ui/fade-text.tsx:

1. Drop the `useEffect([children])` that re-ran `measureOverflow`
   (reads scrollWidth + clientWidth — forced layout) on every parent
   re-render. `useResizeObserver` already fires the same callback on
   mount and whenever the host span's box size changes; that covers
   the only case where overflow state can legitimately change. The
   previous explicit useEffect was a forced-layout flush on every
   parent render, which during streaming meant every token tick.

2. Wrap the component in `memo` with a custom comparator that
   short-circuits the entire render when scalar string `children` and
   the className/fadeWidth/style props are unchanged. The hot path
   was tool-fallback's title chips being re-rendered by parent
   streaming updates even though their text was stable; memo+
   comparator skips that.

Also adds two harness scripts under apps/desktop/scripts/:
  - latency-under-stream.mjs (key→paint latency while a turn streams)
  - profile-under-stream.mjs (CPU profile while a turn streams)

Updates profile-typing-lag.md with the streaming numbers and confirms
the Enter→paint submit path is already fast (≤320ms on the populated
session; the 2s "stall after Enter" the user noticed once was a
one-time cold-start, not reproducible at the UI layer).

I'd guess the felt jank in real use is fast-burst typing during a
long-form streaming reply (code blocks + markdown lists multiply the
per-token render cost). The CPU savings here scale linearly with
token volume.
This commit is contained in:
Brooklyn Nicholson
2026-05-21 16:09:44 -05:00
parent bff1b3261d
commit 88e7d7537c
6 changed files with 689 additions and 85 deletions
+44 -7
View File
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
import type { ComponentProps, CSSProperties } from 'react'
import { useCallback, useEffect, useRef, useState } from 'react'
import { memo, useCallback, useRef, useState } from 'react'
import { useResizeObserver } from '@/hooks/use-resize-observer'
import { cn } from '@/lib/utils'
@@ -22,8 +22,23 @@ interface FadeTextProps extends Omit<ComponentProps<'span'>, 'children'> {
* background is — no need to know the surface color, no after-pseudo overlap.
* The mask is only applied when the text is actually overflowing, so short
* strings render as plain text without an unnecessary gradient on their tail.
*
* `memo` with a custom comparator skips re-renders entirely when the parent
* passed the same scalar `children` (e.g. a tool title string that didn't
* change between streaming frames). This matters during assistant streaming,
* where parents re-render on every token; without the memo+comparator,
* tool-fallback's title FadeTexts re-rendered for every token even though
* the title text was unchanged, and the `useResizeObserver` callback paid
* the `scrollWidth`/`clientWidth` cost (forced layout) on each one.
*
* The internal `useResizeObserver` fires the measure callback once on mount
* and whenever the host span's size changes; that covers initial render and
* any container resize. The previous explicit `useEffect([children, ...])`
* is redundant in that picture — RO already handles the only case where
* overflow state can legitimately change (host size changes) — and was the
* cause of the per-token forced-layout flushes.
*/
export function FadeText({ children, className, fadeWidth = '3rem', style, ...rest }: FadeTextProps) {
function FadeTextImpl({ children, className, fadeWidth = '3rem', style, ...rest }: FadeTextProps) {
const ref = useRef<HTMLSpanElement>(null)
const [overflowing, setOverflowing] = useState(false)
@@ -34,15 +49,13 @@ export function FadeText({ children, className, fadeWidth = '3rem', style, ...re
return
}
setOverflowing(el.scrollWidth - el.clientWidth > 1)
const overflow = el.scrollWidth - el.clientWidth > 1
setOverflowing(prev => (prev === overflow ? prev : overflow))
}, [])
useResizeObserver(measureOverflow, ref)
useEffect(() => {
measureOverflow()
}, [children, measureOverflow])
const maskStyle: CSSProperties = overflowing
? {
maskImage: `linear-gradient(to right, black calc(100% - ${fadeWidth}), transparent)`,
@@ -62,3 +75,27 @@ export function FadeText({ children, className, fadeWidth = '3rem', style, ...re
</span>
)
}
function arePropsEqual(prev: FadeTextProps, next: FadeTextProps): boolean {
// Cheap scalar-children short-circuit — the hot path during streaming is
// re-rendering FadeText with the same string children every token tick.
// For non-string children we skip the optimization and fall through to
// React's default referential check (returning false re-renders, but
// crucially the inner `useResizeObserver` is still the only thing that
// can trigger a forced-layout pass).
if (prev.children !== next.children) {
if (typeof prev.children !== 'string' || typeof next.children !== 'string') {
return false
}
if (prev.children !== next.children) return false
}
return (
prev.className === next.className &&
prev.fadeWidth === next.fadeWidth &&
prev.style === next.style
)
}
export const FadeText = memo(FadeTextImpl, arePropsEqual)