android-compose-performance

Android Compose Performance

When To Use

• Use this skill when the request is about: compose performance issue, recomposition too much android, slow lazycolumn compose.
• Primary outcome: Profile and improve Compose recomposition, layout, scrolling, startup, and rendering performance in Android apps.
• Handoff skills when the scope expands:
• android-performance-observability
• android-testing-ui

Workflow

1. Identify whether the target surface is Compose, View system, or a mixed interoperability screen.
2. Select the lowest-friction UI pattern that satisfies responsiveness, accessibility, and performance needs.
3. Build the UI around stable state, explicit side effects, and reusable design tokens.
4. Exercise edge cases such as long text, font scaling, RTL, and narrow devices in the fixture apps.
5. Validate with unit, UI, and screenshot-friendly checks before handing off.

Guardrails

• Optimize for stable state and predictable rendering before adding animation or abstraction.
• Respect accessibility semantics, contrast, focus order, and touch target guidance by default.
• Do not mix Compose and View system ownership without an explicit interoperability boundary.
• Prefer measured performance work over premature micro-optimizations.

Anti-Patterns

• Embedding navigation or business logic directly in leaf UI components.
• Using fixed dimensions that break on localization or dynamic text.
• Ignoring semantics and announcing only visual changes.
• Porting XML patterns directly into Compose without adapting the mental model.

Remediation Examples

Stabilize list identity

LazyColumn {
    items(tasks, key = { it.id }) { task ->
        TaskRow(task)
    }
}

Move heavy work out of composition

@Composable
fun TaskBoard(tasks: List<TaskUiModel>) {
    val visibleTasks = remember(tasks) { tasks.sortedBy { it.title } }
    LazyColumn { items(visibleTasks, key = { it.title }) { TaskRow(it) } }
}

Avoid broad scroll-driven recomposition

Box(
    modifier = Modifier.offset {
        IntOffset(0, scrollState.value)
    }
)