NectarPress Performance Guide¶

NectarPress targets Lighthouse mobile ≥ 90 and Core Web Vitals: LCP ≤ 2.5s, INP ≤ 200ms, CLS ≤ 0.1 on a clean install with the Enterprise demo pack. These targets are achievable without any external caching plugin on a VPS with 2 vCPU / 4 GB RAM.

Expected Baselines (Clean Install + Cloudflare CDN)¶

Measurements: Lighthouse DevTools throttled (Slow 4G, 4× CPU), Chrome 124, Ubuntu 22.04.

Built-in Optimizations¶

NectarPress applies these out of the box — no configuration needed:

Font Loading¶

• All Nepali fonts (Mukta, Noto Sans Devanagari, Kalimati) self-hosted in /assets/fonts/
• Fonts subset to Devanagari + Latin Basic (saves 50–60% vs full unicode)
• font-display: swap prevents invisible text during load
• Primary fonts preloaded via <link rel="preload" as="font">
• Font stylesheet non-blocking (<link rel="preload" as="style" onload="this.rel='stylesheet'">)

Script Loading¶

• All NectarPress scripts: defer strategy
• Google Analytics, GTM, Facebook Pixel: lazy-loaded after first user interaction (or 2s after DOMContentLoaded)
• No jQuery in new Sprint 1+ code; legacy jQuery usage isolated to specific handlers

Image Optimization¶

• Hero / LCP images: fetchpriority="high" + loading="eager"
• All other images: loading="lazy" + decoding="async"
• Explicit width + height attributes on all images via filter (prevents CLS)
• srcset + sizes on all wp_get_attachment_image() calls

CSS¶

• contain: layout on repeating card components (reduces repaints)
• Logical CSS properties where supported (margin-inline-start instead of margin-left)
• Critical CSS inlined at build time for homepage, single, archive, reporter templates

Third-Party Resource Hints¶

• preconnect only to configured services (no unused preconnects)
• dns-prefetch for less-critical third parties

Caching Plugin Recommendations¶

Paywall Cache Exclusion (critical)¶

All caching plugins must exclude premium-gated content from the page cache. Serving a cached paywalled page to a premium subscriber who logged in after the cache was set would show them the paywall incorrectly.

NectarPress automatically sets Cache-Control: private, no-store on: - Any page where the paywall is triggered - All admin pages - All checkout/payment pages

WP Rocket respects these headers automatically.

For W3 Total Cache and others, add these URL patterns to the "Never Cache" list:

/np-paywall/
/np-checkout/
/np-account/

Dynamic Widgets That Must Bypass Cache¶

These widgets fetch real-time data and must not be cached: - NEPSE ticker (updates every 15 minutes during market hours) - Forex rates (updates hourly) - Live blog auto-refresh - Breaking news strip (when using "live" mode)

NectarPress marks these with Cache-Control: private headers when rendered independently via the REST API. When embedded in page templates, they use AJAX calls that are automatically excluded by most caching plugins.

CDN Configuration¶

Cloudflare (recommended)¶

Cloudflare has edge nodes in Mumbai and Singapore — the closest to Nepal. Average latency from Kathmandu:

• Origin (Nepal host): 30–80ms depending on host
• Cloudflare edge (Mumbai): ~20ms first byte for cached assets

Recommended Cloudflare settings: - SSL mode: Full (strict) - Always Use HTTPS: On - Auto Minify: Off (NectarPress ships pre-minified) - Rocket Loader: Off (conflicts with NectarPress's lazy analytics loader) - Cache level: Aggressive for assets (.js, .css, .woff2) - Bypass cache for: WordPress admin, login, payment pages

See docs/server-config.md for full Cloudflare page rules.

Bunny CDN¶

Bunny has a PoP in Mumbai. Good alternative to Cloudflare for asset delivery: - Pull zone pointing to your origin - Cache TTL: 30 days for images, 1 year for hashed JS/CSS - Smart Optimization: On (auto WebP conversion)

WebP / AVIF Image Optimization¶

Enable in Theme Options → Tab 12 Performance → Image Optimization.

Requirements: - PHP GD with WebP support: gd_info() should show WebP Support: true - OR PHP Imagick with WEBP delegate

When enabled: - Uploaded JPG/PNG images are automatically converted to WebP - Original files retained as fallback for browsers without WebP support - The <picture> element with <source type="image/webp"> is used for all responsive images

For AVIF (even smaller files, better quality), enable the "AVIF output" toggle — requires Imagick 7.0.25+.

Database Query Optimization¶

NectarPress adds database indexes for its most-queried meta keys on activation: - nr_workflow_state (editorial workflow queries) - _nectarpress_demo_import_id (demo content scoping) - _np_zone (ad zone lookups)

For sites with 10,000+ posts, enable the object cache layer in wp-config.php:

// Redis (recommended)
define('WP_REDIS_HOST', '127.0.0.1');
define('WP_REDIS_PORT', 6379);
define('WP_REDIS_DATABASE', 0);

With Redis, NectarPress's cache TTLs extend from 1 hour to 12 hours for stable data (ad zones, dashboard aggregations).

Performance Monitoring¶

wp nectarpress doctor¶

The doctor command checks key performance indicators:

wp nectarpress doctor

Checks: PHP memory limit, MySQL version, filesystem write speed, object cache availability.

Query Monitor Plugin¶

During development or when investigating slowness, install Query Monitor. NectarPress respects QM's environment and adds its own timing data to the QM panel.

Key things to watch: - Homepage section queries should complete in <50ms total - No query should run >100ms - N+1 patterns (same query running 20+ times) indicate a template issue

Theme Zip Size Limits¶

The theme zip must stay ≤ 5 MB. Current size: ~3.2 MB.

Excluded from zip automatically: - node_modules/ - .git/ - vendor/ (Composer dependencies) - tests/ - docs/ - *.map files (source maps) - .DS_Store

To verify: npm run zip && ls -lh dist/nectarpress.zip