Cloudflare Pages performance tuning: push first paint and edge response to the limit
Around Cloudflare Pages's real bottlenecks, an actionable LCP / INP / CLS checklist.
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Quick answer
Why are _headers and _redirects not taking effect?
Both files must live in the output root (e.g. dist/). Placing them under src/ means they never ship. Pure static projects should not force a _worker.js either, or you lose the zero-cold-start advantage.
Machine-readable page data: /data/cloudflare-pages-performance-optimization.json
In-depth analysis
Cloudflare Pages watches your Git branch, builds on every commit, and atomically publishes the result to the global edge — zero-ops static hosting. Performance tuning concentrates on three fronts — build-time code splitting, edge caching, and zero runtime dependencies — to push first paint and response time to their floor.
# public/_headers — security headers ride with static assets (Cloudflare convention)
/*
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=63072000; includeSubDomains
X-Frame-Options: DENY
Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-originCloudflare Pages Performance Tuning · Key takeaways
- First-paint JS bundle audited
- Static assets hit edge long cache
- Core interaction INP measured ≤ 100ms
- Lighthouse hits the budget target
FAQ & pitfalls
How do I precisely invalidate Cloudflare edge cache?
Static assets get immutable with a long max-age, HTML gets must-revalidate. Change the filename, change the URL — Cloudflare picks up the new version automatically.
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What readers are asking
Questions that keep coming back in reader feedback, already answered.
- 01
Why are _headers / _redirects not taking effect?
Both files must sit at the root of the output directory (dist/); anything under src/ is never uploaded. A purely static project should not add _worker.js either — that gives up the zero-cold-start advantage.
See the full guide → - 02
How do I invalidate the Cloudflare edge cache precisely?
Give static assets a long immutable max-age and serve HTML with must-revalidate. Changing a filename changes the URL, so Cloudflare fetches the new version automatically.
See the full guide → - 03
Why is my Astro component's interactivity not working?
Components ship as zero-JS HTML by default, so an interactive one needs a client:* directive (client:load, client:visible, …). Without it the script is never bundled into the page.
See the full guide →