Container Startup Benchmark

Runs a real end-to-end benchmark of the container startup + dashboard loading flow through the running dev server. Creates a test agent, seeds a dashboard, starts/stops the container across multiple cycles, and validates every step of the pipeline.

When to use

• Before and after any changes to the container startup path (base-container-client.ts, container-manager.ts, dashboard-manager.ts)
• When investigating container startup latency reports
• As a regression gate before shipping container-related changes

Prerequisites

1. Dev server running (npm run dev or npm run dev:electron)
2. Container runtime (Docker/Lima/Podman) available and running
3. Agent container image built (superagent-container:latest)

Inputs

$ARGUMENTS — parse for:

• --runs N — number of start/stop cycles (default: 3)
• --skip-session — skip the LLM session/message test (saves API cost, faster)
• --base-url URL — dev server URL (default: http://localhost:47891)
• --timeout MS — max wait per phase in ms (default: 120000)
• --json-out PATH — write machine-readable results JSON to file
• --keep-agent — don't delete the test agent after run (for debugging)

If $ARGUMENTS is empty, use defaults: 3 runs, include session test, localhost:47891.

Procedure

1. Verify the dev server is reachable

curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" http://localhost:47891/api/agents

If not running, tell the user to start it and stop.

2. Run the benchmark

The benchmark script lives at .claude/skills/container-benchmark/benchmark-container-startup.ts. Run it with:

npx tsx .claude/skills/container-benchmark/benchmark-container-startup.ts $ARGUMENTS

For piping output (recommended — preserves results if terminal scrolls):

npx tsx .claude/skills/container-benchmark/benchmark-container-startup.ts $ARGUMENTS 2>&1 | tee /tmp/bench-results.txt

3. Interpret results

The script outputs:

• Per-run timings — container start, dashboard start, dashboard first-serve, total start→HTML, session create, message processing, stop
• Per-run validations — 8 checks without session, 10 with session (see table below)
• Summary statistics — p50, p95, mean, min, max across all successful runs
• JSON results — full machine-readable output for diffing

Validations performed (regression checks)

#	Check	What it proves
1	POST /start returns 200, status='running'	Container starts
2	Artifacts poll finds dashboard status='running'	Dashboard boots inside container
3	Dashboard proxy returns 200 with HTML	Proxy routing works
4	HTML contains id="bench-marker"	Dashboard content is correct
5	HTML contains SpeechRecognition + window.Anthropic polyfills	Polyfill injection works
6	SSE received agent_status_changed with status='running'	Real-time events work
7	POST /stop returns status='stopped'	Container stops cleanly
8	SSE received agent_status_changed with status='stopped'	Stop event fires
9	POST /sessions returns session ID (if not --skip-session)	Session creation works
10	Messages poll finds assistant response (if not --skip-session)	Agent processes messages end-to-end

4. Report to the user

Show the summary table and highlight:

• Whether all validations passed
• Key timing metrics (total start→HTML p50 is the headline number)
• Any failures or anomalies

If comparing before/after, note that cross-session timing comparisons are unreliable due to environmental factors (Docker state, machine load). The validations are the reliable regression signal. For timing, look for large (>200ms) consistent shifts, not small fluctuations.

Script architecture

The script (.claude/skills/container-benchmark/benchmark-container-startup.ts) is self-contained with no project source imports. It:

1. Discovers the server's data directory via GET /api/settings
2. Creates a test agent via POST /api/agents
3. Seeds a minimal Bun dashboard directly on the filesystem
4. Connects an SSE listener to /api/notifications/stream
5. For each cycle: verifies agent is stopped → starts → polls dashboard → fetches HTML → optionally creates session → stops
6. Cleans up (stop + delete agent)
7. Exits 0 if all validations pass, 1 if any fail

Key files

• .claude/skills/container-benchmark/benchmark-container-startup.ts — the benchmark script
• src/shared/lib/container/base-container-client.ts — health check polling, container start
• src/shared/lib/container/container-manager.ts — ensureRunning, doStartContainer
• agent-container/src/dashboard-manager.ts — scanAndStartAll, bun install, dashboard boot
• src/renderer/hooks/use-artifacts.ts — frontend dashboard status polling
• src/api/routes/agents.ts — all API endpoints exercised by the benchmark