Lighthouse CI in CI/CD pipeline

Performance regressions introduced by a dependency update, an accidental eager import, or a new feature are invisible without automated measurement. By the time a user reports that the site "feels slow," the regression may have been live for weeks and has already impacted SEO rankings, conversion rates, and Core Web Vitals scores. ISO 25010:2011 time-behaviour captures the measurement requirement; Lighthouse CI enforces a performance floor in the same pipeline that would otherwise let the regression ship undetected.

Add Lighthouse CI to your GitHub Actions workflow using treosh/lighthouse-ci-action. Set a budgetPath to enforce score thresholds — fail the build if the performance score drops more than 5 points from the previous run.

# .github/workflows/lighthouse.yml
jobs:
  lighthouse:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: treosh/lighthouse-ci-action@v11
        with:
          urls: 'https://your-preview-url.vercel.app'
          budgetPath: './lighthouse-budget.json'
          uploadArtifacts: true

In lighthouse-budget.json, set "numericValue": 2500 for LCP and a minimum performance score of 85.

• ID: performance-deep-dive.regression-prevention.lighthouse-ci-configured

• Severity: high

• What to look for: Count all CI/CD workflow files. Enumerate which include Lighthouse CI or performance testing steps. Check .github/workflows/, .gitlab-ci.yml, or equivalent CI config for Lighthouse CI setup. Look for lhci or @lhci/cli in dependencies. Verify that build fails if performance score drops more than a threshold (e.g., 5 points) or LCP regresses more than 100ms.

• Pass criteria: Lighthouse CI is configured in the CI/CD pipeline. Build fails if performance score drops more than 5 points or LCP regresses. Configuration is committed to repo. At least 1 CI pipeline must include Lighthouse CI with a performance score drop threshold of no more than 5 points.

• Fail criteria: No Lighthouse CI configured, or configured but not enforced (doesn't fail build on regression).

• Skip (N/A) when: Never — performance regression prevention is a best practice.

• Cross-reference: For performance budget enforcement at build time, see performance-budget-enforced.

• Detail on fail: "No Lighthouse CI found in CI/CD pipeline" or "Lighthouse CI runs but does not enforce thresholds — regressions not blocked"

• Remediation: Set up Lighthouse CI in your CI/CD pipeline with failing thresholds for performance regression.

  # .github/workflows/lighthouse.yml
  - uses: treosh/lighthouse-ci-action@v11
    with: { urls: 'https://yoursite.com', budgetPath: './budget.json' }