0000-runtime-improvements.md

• Start Date: 2026-02-27
• Target Major Version: 10.x

0) Context and Motivation

Criticisms:

• "I can't prove the performance envelope."
• "Debugging across JS<->native is not deterministic enough."
• "Memory and lifecycle rules feel too implicit."
• "Tooling doesn't show me where time and memory went."

This RFC proposes a runtime roadmap that directly addresses those concerns by making boundary costs measurable and cheap, ownership explicit, and profiling first-class.

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1) Goals

Primary Goals

1. Performance Predictability
   Reduce tail latency and eliminate random jank spikes.

2. Explicit Ownership & Lifecycle
   Make object lifetime across JS and native deterministic and enforceable.

3. Observability-First Runtime
   Make it easy to answer: "Why did this hitch?"

Secondary Goals

4. Startup Consistency
5. Safe Migration Path

Non-Goals

• Rewriting the UI paradigm

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2) Current Pain Points (Hypotheses)

1. Boundary overhead is too dynamic (reflection, runtime dispatch).
2. Ownership between JS and native is ambiguous.
3. Threading rules are insufficiently enforced.
4. Tooling does not unify JS and native execution clearly.

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3) Principles

1. Make the fast path the default path.
2. Pay costs once, not per call.
3. Ownership must be explicit and enforceable.
4. Everything must be measurable.

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4) Proposal

4.1 Codegen-First Bindings

Move core bindings to a code-generated interface layer with static dispatch.

Deliverables: - Binding schema format - JS wrappers + native stubs - Marshaling fast paths - Tracepoints per binding

Acceptance Criteria: - Top 100 APIs use codegen path - Profiler reports dynamic vs codegen usage

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4.2 Explicit Ownership Model

Introduce ownership policies:

• Borrowed
• Owned
• Pinned

Use stable numeric handles with handle tables internally.

Deliverables: - Handle table implementation - dispose() / close() lifecycle hooks - Ownership annotations in schema - Dev-time misuse warnings

Acceptance Criteria: - Leak snapshots identify retained native objects - Misuse triggers actionable errors

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4.3 Boundary Performance Improvements

• Zero-copy typed arrays and buffers
• Packed structs for common value types
• Batched UI transactions

Acceptance Criteria: - Reduced boundary call count - Improved p95/p99 frame times

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4.4 Threading Enforcement

• Enforce UI-thread-only objects
• Provide explicit scheduling primitives

Acceptance Criteria: - Clear errors for thread misuse

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4.5 Observability & Profiling

1. Unified JS + native timeline tracing
2. Boundary profiler (top bindings, call counts, costs)
3. Memory correlation (JS heap + native heap + handles)

Acceptance Criteria: - Performance issues diagnosable from captured traces

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4.6 Startup Improvements

• Bytecode caching / snapshotting
• Precomputed binding tables
• Lazy loading of native APIs

Acceptance Criteria: - Improved cold-start p95

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5) Migration Strategy

• Phase 1: Ship with npm tag during acceptance cycle
• Phase 2: Dual-path bindings (codegen + fallback)
• Phase 3: Tooling for plugin migration
• Phase 4: Default for new apps

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6) Benchmarks & Metrics

Scenarios: - List scroll stress - Startup & first render - Navigation churn - Animation/gesture pressure - Memory retention cycles

Metrics: - Frame time p50 / p95 / p99 - Boundary calls/sec - Marshaling allocations/sec - Cold-start p95 - Retained native handles

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7) Risks

• Engineering scope
• API surface complexity
• Plugin inertia
• Instrumentation overhead

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8) Phased Plan

Phase A: Observability + Baseline Suite

Phase B: Ownership + Handle Tables

Phase C: Codegen for Hot APIs

Phase D: Zero-Copy + Batching

Phase E: Startup Optimization

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9) Open Questions

• Target engine constraints?
• Current top boundary hot paths?
• Ecosystem keystone plugins?
• Schema ergonomics?

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10) Predictability

We are making the runtime predictable:

• Static, measurable boundary calls
• Explicit ownership
• Unified profiling
• Reasonable, enforceable semantics