New feature: Audit website performance with Lighthouse

While lots of people think of CI/CD as something that lets developers deploy software faster and more frequently, let us not forget about its core principle: testing. Without testing, it is impossible to keep high standards of the code which constitutes the website. However, testing does not stop with deployment. Once our application is on the server, it should be constantly monitored for performance. Performance is one of the key factors that determine the position of the website in Google, the difference between life or death in online business.

For this, we can use Lighthouse, an open-source tool allowing developers to run performance audits on their websites. Buddy incorporates this tool as a dedicated action that you can use recurrently for round-the-clock coverage, or after every deployment to check the impact of changes on the website.

The action can be found in the Performance & App Monitoring section of the action roster, or simply by typing its name in the search input:

Lighthouse location

The action lets you select the website's URL, the device from which it's accessed (mobile, desktop, or both), and the minimum value for four Lightouse-specific metrics the website needs to score: Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO.

Action details

If one or more values score below the required level, the action will fail and throw the error in the logs:

Action logs

Use Case #1: Continuous auditing

With Buddy you can configure a pipeline in recurrent mode that will automatically audit the website, for example, once a day:

Pipeline settings

With the triggering mode configured, you can set up the Lighthouse action, and some notifications that will keep you awake in case the performance drops. Make sure to add them in the On failed section of the pipeline:

Recurrent auditing pipeline

Use Case #2: Post-deployment auditing

Another use case is running the audit immediately after the deployment. This is useful if you want to be aware of your updates improving or decreasing the Lighthouse score (although it might take some time for Google to index the changes). In this case, simply add the action at the end of the pipeline after the deployment action.

Deployment & monitoring pipeline