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meshcore-analyzer/cmd
Alex BandClaude Opus 5.5 4e91c5cf0b perf(analytics): opt-in pauseWhenIdle skips recomputes nobody reads (#2164)
## Summary

The analytics recomputers (#1240) recompute eleven snapshots (topology,
RF, distance, channels, hash collisions, hash sizes, roles, two
clock-skew views, retransmissions, direct-heard) on a fixed interval,
300 s by default, whether or not anyone reads them. That is the right
trade for a busy instance: reads always hit a warm cache. On a quiet one
it means most of the server's allocation goes on results nobody looks
at.

Measured on one production instance (2 vCPU / 2 GB):

- topology, RF and hash-sizes were each **read 23 times in 45 hours**
while being recomputed every 5 minutes;
- `analyticsRecomputer.runOnce` accounted for **30% of all bytes
allocated** (121 GB of 391 GB in 45 h);
- garbage collection was 87% of the process's CPU (30 s CPU profile:
`gcDrain` 39.9 s of 45.9 s sampled), with an 805 MB live heap against a
1 GiB `GOMEMLIMIT`, so allocation rate translates directly into
collector time.

This PR adds an **opt-in** `analytics.pauseWhenIdle`:

- a recomputer's tick is skipped when nothing has read its snapshot
since the previous compute, and the recomputer is marked paused;
- the next read still returns immediately with the snapshot it holds
(`Load` stays non-blocking, as #1240 requires), and makes a non-blocking
send that wakes the loop to recompute; reads after that get the fresh
snapshot and the ticker resumes from there.

**Default is off**, so behaviour is unchanged unless an operator turns
it on. The trade-off for operators who do: the first read after a quiet
spell can show a snapshot older than the interval (refreshed seconds
later). It is documented in `config.example.json`.

No existing issue covers this.

## Config example

Off by default. To turn it on, add one key to the existing `analytics`
block in `config.json`:

```json
"analytics": {
  "defaultIntervalSeconds": 300,
  "pauseWhenIdle": true
}
```

Nothing else changes: per-endpoint `recomputeIntervalSeconds` still
apply while an endpoint is being read. There is no UI change, so no
screenshot.

## Performance

Staging A/B: the same 30 minutes of real production API traffic (5,640
requests from a day's nginx log, replayed at 2x against a copy of the
production database with the live MQTT feed), on `master` and on this
branch with `pauseWhenIdle: true`, each after a restart and warm-up.
Allocation is the delta of `/debug/pprof/allocs` across the replay:

| during the replay | master | this PR |
|---|---|---|
| allocated by `analyticsRecomputer.runOnce` | 459.7 MB | **53.4 MB
(-88%)** |
| total allocated by the process | 3,704 MB | 3,372 MB (-9%) |
| GC cycles | 52 | 41 |
| requests: p50 / p95 / errors | 9.9 ms / 57.0 ms / 0 | 10.4 ms / 60.1
ms / 0 |

The replayed traffic included real analytics reads, so the paused
recomputers were woken by them; the remaining 53 MB is that. Over 15
minutes each recomputer only ticks about three times, so on a longer
quiet period the saving grows with the idle time. GC count and CPU on
this shared host vary between runs on their own, so the allocation
figures are the claim, not the GC count.

There is no Go benchmark for this change: the behaviour is "how many
computes happen in a period of no reads", which the tests below assert
directly (16 computes on master vs at most 2 here over the same idle
period).

## Tests

- Red commit `24056c57`: config field, accessor stub and an unused
recomputer flag, plus tests. Three fail on the stub:
- `TestAnalyticsRecomputer_PauseWhenIdleSkipsUnreadTicks`: an unread
recomputer with a 20 ms interval computes at most twice in 300 ms (16
times on the stub);
- `TestConfig_AnalyticsPauseWhenIdle`: `pauseWhenIdle: true` enables it,
absent or nil config leaves it off;
- `TestStartAnalyticsRecomputers_AppliesPauseWhenIdle`: all eleven
recomputers receive the flag.
- Also added, passing on both commits on purpose: a read on a paused
recomputer returns the existing snapshot and triggers a refresh; a
recomputer that is being read keeps ticking; the default (off) keeps
ticking unread.
- Green commit `19de3636`: the behaviour, `config.example.json` entry
with `_comment_pauseWhenIdle`, and the `Load` doc comment.
- `go test -race` on the recomputer, warm-up (#1659) and config tests,
three runs: pass. `make test`: 16 of 16 modules pass. The frontend tests
that read `config.example.json` pass.

## Review notes

- `roles` reads the nodes-clock-skew snapshot inside its own compute,
which counts as a read, so that dependency keeps its source fresh while
roles is in use.
- The #1659 warm-up gate is untouched: a skipped tick never marks a
first pass done.
- Config documented per WORKFLOW.md section 7. Customizer (AGENTS.md
rule 8): it is an operator setting, not a display value; no customizer
entry proposed.

## SonarLint

SonarQube Community rules (the SonarLint engine) were run on the files
this PR touches, and only issues on lines it adds are listed.

- No issues on the added lines.

## Checked against the repo rules

- Rebased onto `master` (`673442cc`). Each red commit was re-run and
still fails on its assertions; each green commit passes (TDD.md).
- `make test`: all 16 modules pass. Frontend suites: all pass except
`test-issue-1956-release-routing.js`, which needs CI's `GITHUB_REF_NAME`
and fails the same way on `master` locally (#2160 addresses it).
- No private data: test fixtures and examples use the codes the existing
tests use (SJC/SFO/LAX, `#be`-style scopes).
- No new `map[string]interface{}`, no hard-coded colours. `git add` was
explicit, and there is one logical change per commit.

🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code)

https://claude.ai/code/session_01KaR4xu8gVykQBkH8yG8m6H

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-11 09:51:48 +02:00
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