debug-optimize-lcp

What is LCP and why it matters

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures how quickly a page's main content becomes visible. It's the time from navigation start until the largest image or text block renders in the viewport.

• Good: 2.5 seconds or less
• Needs improvement: 2.5–4.0 seconds
• Poor: greater than 4.0 seconds

LCP is a Core Web Vital that directly affects user experience and search ranking. On 73% of mobile pages, the LCP element is an image.

LCP Subparts Breakdown

Every page's LCP breaks down into four sequential subparts with no gaps or overlaps. Understanding which subpart is the bottleneck is the key to effective optimization.

Subpart	Ideal % of LCP	What it measures
Time to First Byte (TTFB)	~40%	Navigation start → first byte of HTML received
Resource load delay	<10%	TTFB → browser starts loading the LCP resource
Resource load duration	~40%	Time to download the LCP resource
Element render delay	<10%	LCP resource downloaded → LCP element rendered

The "delay" subparts should be as close to zero as possible. If either delay subpart is large relative to the total LCP, that's the first place to optimize.

Common Pitfall: Optimizing one subpart (like compressing an image to reduce load duration) without checking others. If render delay is the real bottleneck, a smaller image won't help — the saved time just shifts to render delay.

Debugging Workflow

Follow these steps in order. Each step builds on the previous one.

Step 1: Record a Performance Trace

Navigate to the page, then record a trace with reload to capture the full page load including LCP:

1. navigate_page to the target URL.
2. performance_start_trace with reload: true and autoStop: true.

The trace results will include LCP timing and available insight sets. Note the insight set IDs from the output — you'll need them in the next step.

Step 2: Analyze LCP Insights

Use performance_analyze_insight to drill into LCP-specific insights. Look for these insight names in the trace results:

• LCPBreakdown — Shows the four LCP subparts with timing for each.
• DocumentLatency — Server response time issues affecting TTFB.
• RenderBlocking — Resources blocking the LCP element from rendering.
• LCPDiscovery — Whether the LCP resource was discoverable early.

Call performance_analyze_insight with the insight set ID and the insight name from the trace results.

Step 3: Identify the LCP Element

Use evaluate_script with the "Identify LCP Element" snippet found in references/lcp-snippets.md to reveal the LCP element's tag, resource URL, and raw timing data.

The url field tells you what resource to look for in the network waterfall. If url is empty, the LCP element is text-based (no resource to load).

Step 4: Check the Network Waterfall

Use list_network_requests to see when the LCP resource loaded relative to other resources:

• Call list_network_requests filtered by resourceTypes: ["Image", "Font"] (adjust based on Step 3).
• Then use get_network_request with the LCP resource's request ID for full details.

Key Checks:

• Start Time: Compare against the HTML document and the first resource. If the LCP resource starts much later than the first resource, there's resource load delay to eliminate.
• Duration: A large resource load duration suggests the file is too big or the server is slow.

Step 5: Inspect HTML for Common Issues

Use evaluate_script with the "Audit Common Issues" snippet found in references/lcp-snippets.md to check for lazy-loaded images in the viewport, missing fetchpriority, and render-blocking scripts.

Optimization Strategies

After identifying the bottleneck subpart, apply these prioritized fixes.

1. Eliminate Resource Load Delay (target: <10%)

The most common bottleneck. The LCP resource should start loading immediately.

• Root Cause: LCP image loaded via JS/CSS, data-src usage, or loading="lazy".
• Fix: Use standard <img> with src. Never lazy-load the LCP image.
• Fix: Add <link rel="preload" fetchpriority="high"> if the image isn't discoverable in HTML.
• Fix: Add fetchpriority="high" to the LCP <img> tag.

2. Eliminate Element Render Delay (target: <10%)

The element should render immediately after loading.

• Root Cause: Large stylesheets, synchronous scripts in <head>, or main thread blocking.
• Fix: Inline critical CSS, defer non-critical CSS/JS.
• Fix: Break up long tasks blocking the main thread.
• Fix: Use Server-Side Rendering (SSR) so the element exists in initial HTML.

3. Reduce Resource Load Duration (target: ~40%)

Make the resource smaller or faster to deliver.

• Fix: Use modern formats (WebP, AVIF) and responsive images (srcset).
• Fix: Serve from a CDN.
• Fix: Set Cache-Control headers.
• Fix: Use font-display: swap if LCP is text blocked by a web font.

4. Reduce TTFB (target: ~40%)

The HTML document itself takes too long to arrive.

• Fix: Minimize redirects and optimize server response time.
• Fix: Cache HTML at the edge (CDN).
• Fix: Ensure pages are eligible for back/forward cache (bfcache).

Verifying Fixes & Emulation

• Verification: Re-run the trace (performance_start_trace with reload: true) and compare the new subpart breakdown. The bottleneck should shrink.
• Emulation: Lab measurements differ from real-world experience. Use emulate to test under constraints:
  • emulate with networkConditions: "Fast 3G" and cpuThrottlingRate: 4.
  • This surfaces issues visible only on slower connections/devices.