performance

A set of Rails guidelines for measuring and improving application speed, especially in database queries, indexing, caching, and large data operations. It recommends checking real performance data before changing code.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to investigate slow Rails applications, review database schemas and indexes, fix repeated database queries, limit selected fields, add pagination, process records in batches, and configure caching.
Why use it?
It helps avoid spending time on changes that do not matter and reduces the risk of making code harder to maintain. It also addresses common database problems such as repeated queries and loading too much data.

Cursor rule for Cursor

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add rules/levifig/rails-instructions/performance
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/levifig/rails-instructions

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 1,108 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.01108
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00554
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00222
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00111

Measured yesterday against content hash f186dc66df78, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

performance scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.cursor/rules/rails/performance.mdc · 211 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 211 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Rails Performance Guide

Core Philosophy

  • Measure before optimizing
  • Optimize for the common case
  • Keep solutions simple and maintainable
  • Use Rails built-in performance features
  • Monitor performance in production

Database Optimization Principles

  • Design efficient schemas from the start
  • Index foreign keys and queried columns
  • Use database-specific features wisely
  • Keep queries simple and focused
  • Monitor slow query logs

Query Optimization

  • Eliminate N+1 queries with includes
  • Use select to limit returned columns
  • Implement pagination for large datasets
  • Use pluck for single column queries
  • Batch process large operations

Indexing Strategy

  • Index all foreign keys
  • Create composite indexes for multi-column queries
  • Use partial indexes for filtered queries
  • Monitor index usage and effectiveness
  • Remove unused indexes

Caching Principles

  • Cache at multiple levels
  • Use Russian doll caching for nested content
  • Implement fragment caching for expensive views
  • Cache database queries appropriately
  • Monitor cache hit rates

Rails Cache Store

  • Use Solid Cache for database-backed caching
  • Configure Redis for high-traffic applications
  • Set appropriate cache expiration
  • Use cache keys that auto-expire
  • Monitor cache memory usage

Fragment Caching

  • Cache expensive view partials
  • Use cache digests for automatic expiration
  • Implement conditional caching
  • Cache user-specific content carefully
  • Profile view rendering times

Query Caching

  • Leverage Rails query cache
  • Use low-level caching for expensive calculations
  • Cache aggregated data
  • Implement counter caches
  • Update caches strategically

Asset Optimization

  • Use Propshaft for simple asset handling
  • Implement CDN for asset delivery
  • Compress assets appropriately
  • Set proper cache headers
  • Optimize image sizes

Background Job Performance

  • Process heavy operations asynchronously
  • Use appropriate queue priorities
  • Batch similar operations
  • Monitor job queue depth
  • Implement job timeouts

Read the full file on GitHub · 211 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 211 lines · 1,108 tokens per session scan A f186dc66df78

Subscribe to this mod's changes

performance is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository levifig/rails-instructions (54 stars, last pushed 1y ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,108 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.