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perf(api): warm up the GraphQL Lambda during init - #5901

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@adrians5j adrians5j commented Oct 2, 2026 •

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Why

Lambda runs a function's init phase with close to a full vCPU, then caps each invocation at the share that comes with its memory: about 0.58 vCPU at 1024 MB. I measured this on the dev stack with process.cpuUsage() against wall time. Init ran at about 0.9 CPU seconds per second. The first request ran at about 0.57, with the event loop idle for only about 45 ms, so it was CPU-bound, not waiting on the network. Everything a cold start's first request does therefore runs about 1.7x slower than the same work during init: building the root and request containers, fetching the WCP license, opening the DynamoDB connection, building the GraphQL schema, and compiling the code on that path.

What changed

  • createWebinyApiHandler now returns the handler with a warmUp() method. It sends one internal { __typename } API Gateway event through the full stack. It stops waiting after 5 seconds (init has a 10 second limit) and swallows errors, so init can never fail because of it. A fresh install, for example, has no tenant yet.
  • warmUpLambdaHandler({ handler, streamHandler }) warms up only the handler this function runs, read from Lambda's _HANDLER. The graphql-stream function loads the same bundle and skips it, since its handler has no warmUp().
  • The two api/graphql templates (DynamoDB and OpenSearch) await it at the top level, so it runs during init. Existing projects get it when their app workspace is regenerated.
  • ai-powerups loads @webiny/lexical-converter on first use. Only page translation needs it, but it pulled lexical, cheerio and cheerio's bundled undici into every cold start. The main bundle file drops from 4.5 MB to 3.0 MB. Importing undici also replaced the dispatcher behind Node's built-in fetch with the bundled copy, wasm HTTP parser included.

Results

1024 MB Lambda, forced cold starts, alternating builds, without --enable-source-maps (production settings). Medians from each run.

First request Build Init First request Init + first
{ __typename } before 1183 / 1193 ms 778 / 768 ms 1967 / 1929 ms
{ __typename } after 1497 / 1506 ms 75 / 73 ms 1570 / 1577 ms
authenticated listFiles before ~1180 ms ~1040 ms ~2225 ms
authenticated listFiles after ~1495 ms ~524 ms ~2015 ms

The { __typename } rows are the best case, since the warm-up sends the same query. A different first request still finds the containers, connection, license and JIT already warm, and saves about 210 ms. Measured without the lazy converter, the warm-up alone gave 1698 ms against 1595 ms with both changes.

The "before" numbers include #5899 (schema build). This PR doesn't depend on it.

Testing

  • __tests__/warmUp.test.ts (api-event-handler-aws) covers five cases: it calls only the handler named in _HANDLER, with a POST { __typename }; it skips handlers without warmUp(); it does nothing outside Lambda; it doesn't throw when the request fails; and it stops waiting for a request that hangs.
  • __tests__/features/WbTranslatePage/LexicalParser.test.ts (ai-powerups) runs the real parser through the lazy import. The existing translation test mocks it.
  • api-event-handler-aws passes 11 of 11, and ai-powerups passes 89 of 89 plus the new test.
  • I deployed this branch with wd api and checked both functions. graphql served an authenticated listFiles. graphql-stream, invoked directly with a Function URL event, returned { __typename } with a normal init, so it skipped the warm-up.

Workspace: wby-next4 · ✨ Event Van Handler 🎸

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Summary by CodeRabbit

  • New Features
    • GraphQL handlers now receive automatic AWS Lambda warm-up requests.
    • Warm-up support is available for DynamoDB and OpenSearch event handler integrations.
  • Tests
    • Added coverage for warm-up behavior, including unsupported handlers, missing Lambda configuration, errors, and timeouts.
    • Added coverage confirming translated HTML is parsed into Lexical content.

Lambda runs init with close to a full vCPU and caps each invocation at the
memory's share (about 0.58 vCPU at 1024 MB), so the work a cold start's first
request does ran about 1.7x slower than it would during init.

- createWebinyApiHandler returns the handler with a warmUp() that sends one
  internal { __typename } request (5 s cap, errors swallowed so init can
  never fail because of it).
- warmUpLambdaHandler() picks the handler the function runs from _HANDLER,
  so the stream function, which loads the same bundle, skips it.
- The api/graphql templates await it at the top level.
- ai-powerups loads @webiny/lexical-converter on first use. It brought
  lexical, cheerio and undici into every cold start (main bundle 4.5 -> 3.0 MB),
  and importing undici swapped the dispatcher behind the global fetch.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@adrians5j adrians5j added the evh-cleanups event-handler DI/transport-agnostic cleanups label Oct 2, 2026
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github-actions Bot commented Oct 2, 2026 •

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🚓 Slop Cop

✅ Nothing worth flagging. The diff looks consistent with the PR's stated intent and the code-style rules.

The PR is a coherent, well-scoped perf change (Lambda warm-up + lazy lexical-converter import) with matching tests; no integrity or style issues found.

Automated, non-blocking heads-up from an LLM. It can be wrong — use your judgment. Regenerates on every push.

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📒 Files selected for processing (2)
  • packages/api-event-handler-aws/__tests__/warmUp.test.ts
  • packages/api-event-handler-aws/src/warmUp.ts
🚧 Files skipped from review as they are similar to previous changes (1)
  • packages/api-event-handler-aws/tests/warmUp.test.ts

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The Lexical parser now loads and caches its converter on first use. AWS API handlers gain warm-up support, which the DDB packages expose and the GraphQL templates call during module initialization.

Changes

Lexical parser loading

Layer / File(s) Summary
Load and test the Lexical parser
packages/ai-powerups/src/api/features/WbTranslatePage/LexicalParser.ts, packages/ai-powerups/__tests__/features/WbTranslatePage/LexicalParser.test.ts
The parser dynamically loads and caches the converter on first use. A test checks the roots and text produced from two HTML inputs.

AWS Lambda handler warm-up

Layer / File(s) Summary
Define and run handler warm-up
packages/api-event-handler-aws/src/warmUp.ts
The module defines handler types, creates a synthetic API Gateway request and Lambda context, and invokes the selected warmable handler. Warm-up stops waiting after five seconds. Synchronous throws and rejected requests do not cause warm-up to reject.
Wrap and export AWS API handlers
packages/api-event-handler-aws/src/createWebinyApiHandler.ts, packages/api-event-handler-aws/src/index.ts, packages/api-event-handler-aws-ddb/src/index.ts, packages/api-event-handler-aws-ddb-os/src/index.ts
createWebinyApiHandler returns its Lambda handler through withWarmUp. The AWS handler package and its DDB variants export warmUpLambdaHandler.
Invoke and test warm-up
packages/project-aws/_templates/appTemplates/api/graphql/src/index.ts, packages/project-aws/_templates/extensions/OpenSearch/api/graphql/src/index.ts, packages/api-event-handler-aws/__tests__/warmUp.test.ts
Both GraphQL templates call warmUpLambdaHandler with their exported handlers at module initialization. Tests cover handler selection, missing configuration, rejected requests, synchronous throws, and timeout.

Priority: ➖ Normal

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~25 minutes

Change: Feature

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant GraphQL entry point
  participant warmUpLambdaHandler
  participant Warmable handler
  GraphQL entry point->>warmUpLambdaHandler: Pass exported handlers
  warmUpLambdaHandler->>Warmable handler: Call warmUp for the selected handler
  Warmable handler->>Warmable handler: Invoke handler with synthetic GraphQL request and context
Loading

Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to 075f4

No material merge blocker is supported. The generic warm-up skips the streaming Lambda because its calling convention differs; the supplied context establishes no separate requirement to warm it.

Architecture Summary

Architecture risk: 🔵 Low · up to 075f4

The change affects 5 systems.

Changed systems: packages/api-event-handler-aws, packages/ai-powerups, packages/project-aws, packages/api-event-handler-aws-ddb, packages/api-event-handler-aws-ddb-os

Architecture concerns
No architecture-level concerns identified.

Review details

Systems and components

  • observed — packages/api-event-handler-aws (library) was modified; 4 changed files map to changed impact.
  • observed — packages/ai-powerups (api) was modified; 2 changed files map to changed impact.
  • observed — packages/project-aws (api) was modified; 2 changed files map to changed impact.
  • observed — packages/api-event-handler-aws-ddb (library) was modified; 1 changed file maps to changed impact.

Before / after behavior

  • observed — Modified behavior in packages/ai-powerups/tests/features/WbTranslatePage/LexicalParser.test.ts: Adds a test that resolves LexicalParser through LexicalParserAbstraction, parses two HTML inputs, and asserts that each result has a root of type root and contains the corresponding text.
  • observed — Modified behavior in packages/ai-powerups/src/api/features/WbTranslatePage/LexicalParser.ts: A local type alias derives the parser type from createHtmlToLexicalParser; the module-level converter import and parser instance were removed. parse now obtains the parser through loadParser before converting the document.
  • observed — Modified behavior in packages/ai-powerups/src/api/features/WbTranslatePage/LexicalParser.ts: Adds loadParser, which dynamically imports the converter and creates and caches its parser on first use, then returns the cached parser on subsequent calls. The accompanying comment notes that the converter also brings in Lexical, Cheerio, and Undici, and that importing Undici changes the global fetch dispatcher.
  • observed — Modified behavior in packages/api-event-handler-aws-ddb-os/src/index.ts: Adds a public re-export of warmUpLambdaHandler from @webiny/api-event-handler-aws.
🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name Status Explanation Resolution
Docstring Coverage ⚠️ Warning Docstring coverage is 0.00% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 1 functions across 10 files. Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.
✅ Passed checks (4 passed)
Check name Status Explanation
Description Check ✅ Passed Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check ✅ Passed The title clearly and concisely describes the primary change: warming the GraphQL Lambda during initialization. It matches the warm-up implementation and template updates.
Linked Issues check ✅ Passed Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check ✅ Passed Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
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Actionable comments posted: 2


  • 🪄 Fix CodeRabbit comments on this PR
🤖 Prompt to fix review comments
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Inline comments:
Review comments at @packages/api-event-handler-aws/src/warmUp.ts:
- Line 67: Update warmUpLambdaHandler to start the handler invocation inside a
promise chain so synchronous throws reach the existing best-effort error
handling instead of rejecting initialization. Add a test using a handler that
throws synchronously.
- Line 62: Remove timer.unref() from the warm-up timeout flow so the five-second
deadline remains referenced while handler(event, context) is pending; retain the
existing finally block that clears the timer.

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Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between f0d3d3e and 8e65033.

📒 Files selected for processing (10)
  • packages/ai-powerups/__tests__/features/WbTranslatePage/LexicalParser.test.ts
  • packages/ai-powerups/src/api/features/WbTranslatePage/LexicalParser.ts
  • packages/api-event-handler-aws-ddb-os/src/index.ts
  • packages/api-event-handler-aws-ddb/src/index.ts
  • packages/api-event-handler-aws/__tests__/warmUp.test.ts
  • packages/api-event-handler-aws/src/createWebinyApiHandler.ts
  • packages/api-event-handler-aws/src/index.ts
  • packages/api-event-handler-aws/src/warmUp.ts
  • packages/project-aws/_templates/appTemplates/api/graphql/src/index.ts
  • packages/project-aws/_templates/extensions/OpenSearch/api/graphql/src/index.ts

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Comment thread packages/api-event-handler-aws/src/warmUp.ts Outdated
Comment thread packages/api-event-handler-aws/src/warmUp.ts Outdated
- With the timer unreferenced, a warm-up request that stalls with nothing else
  holding the event loop let Node exit on the unsettled top-level await
  (exit code 13), which would fail Lambda init. Reproduced with a handler that
  never settles: it now continues after the 5 s cap.
- A handler that throws before returning a promise rejected the warm-up and
  failed init. The call now starts inside the promise chain.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@brunozoric

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how positive are you that this will not cause cross-request bleeds? didnt go much through the code, but first thing that comes to mind is that we created whole system basically on each request. now there is some "init" phase which loads i-dont-know-what.
we used to have problems with cross-request bleeds with storage operations because they were initialized once per lambda. then i had to clear caching and attach some plugins during the init phase of the storage operations, which was done per request.

might be nothing, but i want to make sure we dont introduce that sort of issue again

@adrians5j

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Closing for now.

@adrians5j adrians5j closed this Oct 7, 2026
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