Runtime Performance Auditor (L3 Worker)

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Runtime Performance Auditor (L3 Worker)

Type: L3 Worker

Specialized worker auditing runtime performance anti-patterns in async and general code.

Purpose & Scope

• Audit runtime performance (Priority: MEDIUM)
• Check async anti-patterns, unnecessary allocations, blocking operations
• Write structured findings to file with severity, location, effort, recommendations
• Calculate compliance score (X/​10) for Runtime Performance category

Inputs

MANDATORY READ: Load shared/​references/​audit_worker_core_contract.md. MANDATORY READ: Load shared/​references/​mcp_tool_preferences.md and shared/​references/​mcp_integration_patterns.md

Receives contextStore with: tech_stack, best_practices, codebase_root, output_dir.

Domain-aware: Supports domain_mode + current_domain.

Use hex-graph first when hotspot detection materially improves runtime findings. Use hex-line first for local code reads when available. If MCP is unavailable, unsupported, or not indexed, continue with built-in Read/​Grep/​Glob/​Bash and state the fallback in the report.

Workflow

MANDATORY READ: Load shared/​references/​two_layer_detection.md for detection methodology.

1. Parse context from contextStore

   • Extract tech_stack, best_practices, output_dir
   • Determine scan_path
   • Detect async framework: asyncio (Python), Node.js async, Tokio (Rust)

2. Scan codebase for violations

   • Grep patterns scoped to scan_path
   • For Rules 1, 3, 5: detect async def blocks first, then check for violations inside them

3. Collect findings with severity, location, effort, recommendation

4. Calculate score using penalty algorithm

5. Write Report: Build full markdown report in memory per shared/​templates/​audit_worker_report_template.md, write to {output_dir}/​ln-653--global.md in single Write call

6. Return Summary: Return minimal summary to coordinator (see Output Format)

Audit Rules (Priority: MEDIUM)

1. Blocking IO in Async

What: Synchronous file/​network operations inside async functions, blocking event loop

Detection (Python):

• Find async def functions
• Inside them, grep for blocking calls:
  • File: open(, .read_bytes(), .read_text(), .write_bytes(), .write_text(), Path(...).(read|write)
  • Network: requests.get, requests.post, urllib.request
  • Subprocess: subprocess.run(, subprocess.call(
• Exclude: calls wrapped in await asyncio.to_thread(...) or await loop.run_in_executor(...)

Detection (Node.js):

• Inside async function or arrow async, grep for fs.readFileSync, fs.writeFileSync, child_process.execSync

Severity:

• HIGH: Blocking IO in API request handler (blocks entire event loop)
• MEDIUM: Blocking IO in background task/​worker
• Downgrade when: Blocking IO in __init__/​setup/​bootstrap (not request path) -> LOW. Small file (<1KB) read in non-hot path -> skip

Recommendation: Use aiofiles, asyncio.to_thread(), or loop.run_in_executor() for file operations; use httpx.AsyncClient instead of requests

Effort: S (wrap in to_thread or switch to async library)

2. Unnecessary List Allocation

What: List comprehension where generator expression suffices

Detection:

• len([x for x in ...]) - allocates list just to count; use sum(1 for ...)
• any([x for x in ...]) - allocates list for short-circuit check; use any(x for ...)
• all([x for x in ...]) - same pattern; use all(x for ...)
• set([x for x in ...]) - use set comprehension {x for x in ...}
• "".join([x for x in ...]) - use generator directly "".join(x for x in ...)

Severity:

• MEDIUM: Unnecessary allocation in hot path (API handler, loop)
• LOW: Unnecessary allocation in infrequent code

Recommendation: Replace [...] with generator (...) or set comprehension {...}

Effort: S (syntax change only)

3. Sync Sleep in Async

What: time.sleep() inside async function blocks event loop

Detection:

• Grep for time\.sleep inside async def blocks
• Pattern: await some_async_call() ... time.sleep(N) ... await another_call()

Severity:

• HIGH: time.sleep() in async API handler (freezes all concurrent requests)
• MEDIUM: time.sleep() in async background task
• Downgrade when: time.sleep in CLI/​script (not async server) -> skip

Recommendation: Replace with await asyncio.sleep(N)

Effort: S (one-line change)

4. String Concatenation in Loop

What: Building string via += inside loop (O(n^2) for large strings)

Detection:

• Pattern: variable result, output, html, text with += inside for/while loop
• Grep for: variable followed by += containing string operand inside loop body

Severity:

• MEDIUM: String concat in loop processing large data (>100 iterations)
• LOW: String concat in loop with small iterations (<100)

Recommendation: Use list.append() + "".join(), or io.StringIO, or f-string with "".join(generator)

Effort: S (refactor to list + join)

5. Missing to_thread for CPU-Bound

What: CPU-intensive synchronous code in async handler without offloading to thread

Detection:

• Inside async def, find CPU-intensive operations:
  • JSON parsing large files: json.loads(large_data), json.load(file)
  • Image processing: PIL.Image.open, cv2.imread
  • Crypto: hashlib, bcrypt.hashpw
  • XML/​HTML parsing: lxml.etree.parse, BeautifulSoup(
  • Large data transformation without await points
• Exclude: operations already wrapped in asyncio.to_thread() or executor

Severity:

• MEDIUM: CPU-bound operation in async handler (blocks event loop proportionally to data size)

Recommendation: Wrap in await asyncio.to_thread(func, *args) (Python 3.9+) or loop.run_in_executor(None, func, *args)

Effort: S (wrap in to_thread)

6. Redundant Data Copies

What: Unnecessary .copy(), list(), dict() when data is only read, not mutated

Detection:

• data = list(items) where data is only iterated (never modified)
• config = config_dict.copy() where config is only read
• result = dict(original) where result is returned without modification

Severity:

• LOW: Redundant copy in most contexts (minor memory overhead)
• MEDIUM: Redundant copy of large data in hot path

Recommendation: Remove unnecessary copy; pass original if not mutated

Effort: S (remove copy call)

Scoring Algorithm

MANDATORY READ: Load shared/​references/​audit_worker_core_contract.md and shared/​references/​audit_scoring.md.

Output Format

MANDATORY READ: Load shared/​references/​audit_worker_core_contract.md and shared/​templates/​audit_worker_report_template.md.

Write JSON summary per shared/​references/​audit_summary_contract.md. In managed mode the caller passes both runId and summaryArtifactPath; in standalone mode the worker generates its own run-scoped artifact path per shared contract.

Write report to {output_dir}/​ln-653--global.md with category: "Runtime Performance" and checks: blocking_io_in_async, unnecessary_list_allocation, sync_sleep_in_async, string_concat_in_loop, missing_to_thread, redundant_data_copies.

Return summary per shared/​references/​audit_summary_contract.md.

When summaryArtifactPath is absent, write the standalone runtime summary under .hex-skills/​runtime-artifacts/​runs/​{run_id}/​evaluation-worker/​{worker}--{identifier}.json and optionally echo the same summary in structured output.

Report written: .hex-skills/​runtime-artifacts/​runs/​{run_id}/​audit-report/​ln-653--global.md
Score: X.X/​10 | Issues: N (C:N H:N M:N L:N)

Critical Rules

MANDATORY READ: Load shared/​references/​audit_worker_core_contract.md.

• Do not auto-fix: Report only
• Async context required: Rules 1, 3, 5 apply ONLY inside async functions
• Exclude wrappers: Do not flag calls already wrapped in to_thread/run_in_executor
• Context-aware: Small files (<1KB) read synchronously may be acceptable
• Exclude tests: Do not flag test utilities or test fixtures

Definition of Done

MANDATORY READ: Load shared/​references/​audit_worker_core_contract.md.

• contextStore parsed successfully (including output_dir)
• scan_path determined
• Async framework detected (asyncio/​Node.js async/​Tokio)
• All 6 checks completed:
  • blocking IO, unnecessary allocations, sync sleep, string concat, CPU-bound, redundant copies
• Findings collected with severity, location, effort, recommendation
• Score calculated using penalty algorithm
• Report written to {output_dir}/​ln-653--global.md (atomic single Write call)
• Summary written per contract

Reference Files

• Audit output schema: shared/​references/​audit_output_schema.md

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Version: 1.0.0 Last Updated: 2026-02-04