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Astro what actually works on this platform

Astro ships no JavaScript unless you ask for it, so a slow Astro site is almost always one of two things: islands hydrating when they do not need to, or the HTML being built per request when it could have been built once.

• The HTML came back from a cache — the build is not being repeated per visit, so look at what the page ships rather than at the server.
• Served through Cloudflare.

1. Check your client: directives before anything else. client:load hydrates an island immediately and costs the visitor JavaScript on first paint. client:visible defers it until the component scrolls into view and client:idle until the browser is free; most islands want one of those. A page full of client:load is the usual reason an Astro site feels heavy.
2. Know whether each route is static or server-rendered. Astro can output a static file, render per request, or mix the two per route. A page with no per-visitor content that is rendered per request pays for it on every visit. Prerender the ones that can be, and let the CDN serve them.
3. Use astro:assets for images. It emits modern formats at the sizes actually used and reserves the space so the layout does not shift. Raw <img> tags are usually the largest remaining payload on an otherwise lean Astro site.
4. Watch what a shared layout pulls in. An import in a layout is charged to every page that uses it. One heavy component or icon set there outweighs anything you will save on an individual route.

The full instruction set, and a machine-readable copy of this report, live at gkanev.com.md — paste that URL into your AI builder's chat and it can work straight from these measurements.