Imported from jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace (plugins/saas-packs/lindy-pack/skills/lindy-performance-tuning/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add jeremylongshore/tons-of-skills-marketplace --skill lindy-performance-tuning. Copyright stays with the author (MIT).

Lindy Performance Tuning

Overview

Improve a Lindy workflow through controlled, workspace-specific experiments. Measure the current workflow in Tasks, preserve approval and security boundaries, change one variable, run the same sanitized fixture/eval cohort, and keep the change only when predeclared latency, quality, reliability, and cost criteria pass.

Prerequisites

Lindy workspace with active agents
Access to agent Tasks tab (view step-by-step execution history)
A representative, data-minimized fixture set and offline eval cohort
Permission to inspect Tasks and restore a saved version
An owner-approved list of invariants: confirmations, authorization, redaction, retention, and side-effect limits

Instructions

Step 1: Define the Experiment Contract

Before editing, record:

one workflow class and representative sanitized fixtures;
the exact variable to change and why it should help;
baseline sample window and sample count;
duration median/p95, outcome ratio, eval score, and workspace-reported usage/cost;
acceptance and rollback thresholds; and
security/approval invariants that must remain unchanged.

Use the Tasks view and Get Task Details to identify the slowest or least reliable block. Do not infer universal latency or credit values from this skill.

Step 2: Save a Rollback Point

Open Version History and identify the last known-good version. Record its timestamp or label. Restoring a version creates a new editable version; it does not erase the current history. Keep production activation and side-effecting actions unchanged until the candidate passes the evaluation lane.

Step 3: Choose One Variable

Prioritize the measured bottleneck:

Bottleneck	Symptom	Fix
AI step dominates duration/usage	One step is the measured hotspot	Compare one available model/configuration while holding prompt/tools fixed
Repeated reasoning steps	Same context is processed repeatedly	Test a single structured step while preserving required checks
Broad autonomous scope	Variable paths or tool calls	Narrow skills and define measurable exit conditions
Knowledge retrieval dominates	Too many/large results	Reduce result scope while measuring answer quality
Independent list work is sequential	Per-item waiting dominates	Test a bounded loop and respect downstream rate limits
Trigger volume is noisy	Many irrelevant tasks	Add a precise trigger filter and verify recall

Do not remove confirmation, authorization, validation, redaction, audit, or fallback steps merely to improve speed. Model availability, behavior, and pricing change; use the models currently offered in the workspace and compare them on the same cohort.

Step 4: Make the Candidate Change

Example: consolidate repeated reasoning without exposing customer data.

Before:

Step 1: Classify a sanitized support fixture
Step 2: Extract approved routing fields
Step 3: Draft an internal response recommendation

Candidate:

Step 1: Return validated JSON containing classification, approved routing fields,
        and an internal response recommendation

Use placeholders or synthetic data in fixtures:

{
  "classification": "technical",
  "productCode": "PRODUCT-A",
  "issueType": "access",
  "recommendation": "Send the approved access troubleshooting guide."
}

Exclude names, email addresses, full messages, account numbers, credentials, and unnecessary conversation history. Keep any external communication in draft or Ask for Confirmation mode while testing.

Step 5: Run the Same Evaluation Lane

Run offline evals against the same selected historical/reference tasks. Lindy documents these evals as simulation that does not execute real actions.
Use the Test Panel only with test data and sandbox/test integrations. Lindy documents Test Panel actions as real, including API calls and side effects.
Inspect candidate Tasks/Get Task Details for duration and failures.
Compare the same metrics and cohort definition to baseline.
Reject the candidate immediately if any security/approval invariant changed.

Step 6: Decide and Roll Out

Accept only when every predeclared criterion passes. Example decision policy:

Gate	Example criterion selected before the run
Quality	Eval score is no lower than baseline
Reliability	Failure ratio does not exceed the agreed tolerance
Performance	Candidate p95 improves by the agreed minimum
Cost	Workspace-reported usage/cost does not regress beyond tolerance
Safety	Confirmation, permissions, redaction, and audit evidence are unchanged

Roll out gradually, watch Tasks against the same thresholds, and restore the saved version if a rollback criterion fires. Then change the next variable in a new experiment; never combine results from several simultaneous edits.

Optimization Patterns

Prefer Deterministic Actions for Predictable Fields

Replace AI-powered fields with Set Manually mode when values are predictable:

Field	Instead of AI Prompt	Use Set Manually
Slack channel	"Post to the support channel"	`#support-triage`
Internal category	"Choose an appropriate queue"	`support-triage`
Sheet column	"Determine the right column"	Column A

Measure the actual change; do not attach a fixed credit saving to it.

Bound Knowledge Base Queries

Select the smallest result set that still passes the eval cohort.
Use specific product/issue placeholders rather than full customer messages.
Change result count, query text, or retrieval configuration one at a time.

Filter Triggers

Add a filter based on business-owned metadata, then test both included and excluded fixtures. Confirm that filtering reduces irrelevant tasks without dropping required work. Do not claim a percentage saving until the workspace task history proves it.

Bound Agent Steps and Loops

Use an Agent Step only when the next action genuinely requires adaptive reasoning. Keep a focused skill set, measurable exit conditions, and a fallback. For lists, set Max Cycles from the expected bounded input plus a small safety margin. Set Max Concurrent according to dependency and third-party rate limits; use 1 when order or shared state requires serialization.

Error Handling

Issue	Cause	Solution
Candidate appears faster but quality drops	Metric optimized in isolation	Reject using the predeclared eval gate
Test sends a real message/update	Test Panel used with production integration	Stop, restore affected state, use sandbox data and confirmation
Cost comparison is unclear	Cohorts/windows differ	Re-run with the same fixtures and workspace billing source
Loop overloads an integration	Concurrency exceeds dependency limit	Roll back and lower Max Concurrent
Change removes an approval step	Safety treated as latency overhead	Reject and restore the known-good version

Output

Return a performance experiment record containing:

workflow, sanitized cohort, sample count, and measurement window;
baseline median/p95 duration, outcome ratio, eval score, and workspace usage/cost;
one changed variable, hypothesis, and version rollback point;
acceptance/rollback thresholds and unchanged security/approval invariants;
candidate measurements using the same cohort; and
a decision of accept, reject, or insufficient evidence, with a gradual rollout plan.

Examples

An email-routing workflow shows one reasoning block as the p95 hotspot. Save the known-good version, replace only three repeated reasoning steps with one schema-constrained step, and test the same redacted fixtures. Keep Ask for Confirmation on outbound email. Accept only if the chosen p95 target is met, offline eval quality does not regress, failure tolerance passes, and workspace-reported cost does not exceed the declared threshold; otherwise restore the saved version.

Resources

Next Steps

Use the accepted experiment receipt as the measured input to lindy-cost-tuning; do not substitute generic model, latency, or credit assumptions.

lindy-performance-tuning

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