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ADR-006: Performance-First Before Architecture

Status: Proposed
Date: 2026-01-20
Context: Modernization Priority

Decision​

We prioritize Performance Fixes (Low-Hanging Fruit) before undertaking major architectural refactoring.

Context​

The WepNG platform exhibits performance issues:

  • Sync-over-Async: .Result and .Wait() calls causing thread pool starvation.
  • N+1 Queries: Loops triggering individual DB queries instead of batch operations.
  • Swallowed Exceptions: Empty catch blocks hiding failures and retry storms.
  • Loop of Death: Transactional operations inside iteration loops.

Architectural refactoring (e.g., extracting microservices) will not fix these issues—they will migrate with the code.

Rationale​

"Make it work. Make it right. Make it fast."
— Kent Beck

However, in a legacy system with performance debt, we invert this:

"Make it not slow first. Then make it right."

Fixing performance issues:

  1. Improves User Experience immediately.
  2. Reduces Infrastructure Cost (fewer servers needed).
  3. Simplifies Refactoring (async code is easier to extract).

Consequences​

  1. Immediate Actions:

    • Convert .Result/.Wait() to proper await in identified hotspots.
    • Add StringBuilder for string concatenation in loops.
    • Implement batching for import operations.

  2. Profiling First: Install MiniProfiler before big changes to measure impact.

  3. Deferred Architecture: Microservice extraction, Bounded Context splitting, etc. happen AFTER performance stabilization.

References​