W3C Candidate Recommendation Draft
Copyright © 2024 World Wide Web Consortium. W3C® liability, trademark and permissive document license rules apply.
This specification defines an interface for web applications to access the complete timing information for resources in a document.
This section describes the status of this document at the time of its publication. A list of current W3C publications and the latest revision of this technical report can be found in the W3C technical reports index at https://www.w3.org/TR/.
This document was published by the Web Performance Working Group as a Candidate Recommendation Draft using the Recommendation track.
Publication as a Candidate Recommendation does not imply endorsement by W3C and its Members. A Candidate Recommendation Draft integrates changes from the previous Candidate Recommendation that the Working Group intends to include in a subsequent Candidate Recommendation Snapshot.
This is a draft document and may be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite this document as other than work in progress.
This document was produced by a group operating under the W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
This document is governed by the 03 November 2023 W3C Process Document.
This section is non-normative.
User latency is an important quality benchmark for Web Applications.
While JavaScript-based mechanisms can provide comprehensive
instrumentation for user latency measurements within an application, in
many cases, they are unable to provide a complete end-to-end latency
picture. This document introduces the PerformanceResourceTiming
interface to allow JavaScript mechanisms to collect complete timing
information related to resources on a document. Navigation Timing 2
[NAVIGATION-TIMING-2] extends this specification to provide
additional timing information associated with a navigation.
For example, the following JavaScript shows a simple attempt to measure the time it takes to fetch a resource:
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body onload="loadResources()">
<script>
function loadResources()
{
var start = new Date().getTime();
var image1 = new Image();
var resourceTiming = function() {
var now = new Date().getTime();
var latency = now - start;
alert("End to end resource fetch: " + latency);
};
image1.onload = resourceTiming;
image1.src = 'https://www.w3.org/Icons/w3c_main.png';
}
</script>
<img src="https://www.w3.org/Icons/w3c_home.png">
</body>
</html>
Though this script can measure the time it takes to fetch a resource, it cannot break down the time spent in various phases. Further, the script cannot easily measure the time it takes to fetch resources described in markup.
To address the need for complete information on user experience, this
document introduces the PerformanceResourceTiming
interface.
This interface allows JavaScript mechanisms to provide complete
client-side latency measurements within applications. With this
interface, the previous example can be modified to measure a user's
perceived load time of a resource.
The following script calculates the amount of time it takes to fetch
every resource in the page, even those defined in markup. This example
assumes that this page is hosted on https://www.w3.org. One could
further measure the amount of time it takes in every phase of fetching
a resource with the PerformanceResourceTiming
interface.
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body onload="loadResources()">
<script>
function loadResources()
{
var image1 = new Image();
image1.onload = resourceTiming;
image1.src = 'https://www.w3.org/Icons/w3c_main.png';
}
function resourceTiming()
{
var resourceList = window.performance.getEntriesByType("resource");
for (i = 0; i < resourceList.length; i++)
{
if (resourceList[i].initiatorType == "img")
{
alert("End to end resource fetch: " + (resourceList[i].responseEnd - resourceList[i].startTime));
}
}
}
</script>
<img id="image0" src="https://www.w3.org/Icons/w3c_home.png">
</body>
</html>
As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.
The key words MAY, MUST, and SHOULD in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.
Requirements phrased in the imperative as part of algorithms (such as "strip any leading space characters" or "return false and abort these steps") are to be interpreted with the meaning of the key word ("MUST", "SHOULD", "MAY", etc) used in introducing the algorithm.
Some conformance requirements are phrased as requirements on attributes, methods or objects. Such requirements are to be interpreted as requirements on user agents.
Conformance requirements phrased as algorithms or specific steps may be implemented in any manner, so long as the end result is equivalent. (In particular, the algorithms defined in this specification are intended to be easy to follow, and not intended to be performant.)
The construction "a Foo
object", where Foo
is
actually an interface, is sometimes used instead of the more accurate
"an object implementing the interface Foo
.
Throughout this work, all time values are measured in milliseconds since the start of navigation of the document [HR-TIME]. For example, the start of navigation of the document occurs at time 0.
This definition of time is based on the High Resolution Time specification [HR-TIME] and is different from the definition of time used in the Navigation Timing specification [NAVIGATION-TIMING-2], where time is measured in milliseconds since midnight of January 1, 1970 (UTC).
This section is non-normative.
The PerformanceResourceTiming
interface facilitates timing
measurement of fetched http(s)
resources. For example, this interface is available for
XMLHttpRequest
objects [XHR], HTML elements [HTML] such as
iframe
, img
, script
, object
, embed
and link
with the link type of stylesheet
, SVG elements [SVG11]
such as svg, and
EventSource
.
PerformanceResourceTiming
Interface
This section is non-normative.
Resource Requests fetched by a non-null client
are included as PerformanceResourceTiming
objects in the
client's global object's
Performance
Timeline, unless excluded from the timeline as part of the
fetching process. Resources that are retrieved from HTTP
cache are included as PerformanceResourceTiming
objects in the
Performance
Timeline. Resources for which the fetch was initiated, but
was later aborted (e.g. due to a network error) are included as
PerformanceResourceTiming
objects in the Performance
Timeline, with their start and end timing.
Examples:
src
attribute of two HTML IMG
elements, the fetch of the
resource initiated by the first HTML IMG
element would
be included as a PerformanceResourceTiming
object in the
Performance
Timeline. The user agent might not re-request the URL for the
second HTML IMG
element, instead using the existing
download it initiated for the first HTML IMG
element. In
this case, the fetch of the resource by the first
IMG
element would be the only occurrence in the
Performance
Timeline.
src
attribute of a HTML IMG
element is changed via script, both the fetch of the original
resource as well as the fetch of the new URL would be included as
PerformanceResourceTiming
objects in the Performance
Timeline.
IFRAME
element is added via markup
without specifying a src
attribute, the user agent may
load the about:blank
document for the
IFRAME
. If at a later time the src
attribute is changed dynamically via script, the user agent may
fetch the new URL resource for the IFRAME
. In this
case, only the fetch of the new URL would be included as a
PerformanceResourceTiming
object in the Performance
Timeline.
XMLHttpRequest
is generated twice for the same
canonical URL, both fetches of the resource would be included as
a PerformanceResourceTiming
object in the Performance
Timeline. This is because the fetch of the resource for the
second XMLHttpRequest
cannot reuse the download issued
for the first XMLHttpRequest
.
IFRAME
element is included on the page,
then only the resource requested by IFRAME
src
attribute is included as a
PerformanceResourceTiming
object in the Performance
Timeline. Sub-resources requested by the IFRAME
document will be included in the IFRAME
document's
Performance
Timeline and not the parent document's Performance
Timeline.
IMG
element has a data: URI
as its
source [RFC2397], then this resource will not be included as a
PerformanceResourceTiming
object in the Performance
Timeline. PerformanceResourceTiming
entries are only
reported for http(s) resources.
PerformanceResourceTiming
object in the Performance
Timeline with only the startTime
, fetchStart
, duration
and
responseEnd
set.
PerformanceResourceTiming
object in the
Performance
Timeline.
WebIDL[Exposed=(Window,Worker)]
interface PerformanceResourceTiming
: PerformanceEntry {
readonly attribute DOMString initiatorType
;
readonly attribute DOMString deliveryType
;
readonly attribute ByteString nextHopProtocol
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp workerStart
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp redirectStart
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp redirectEnd
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp fetchStart
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp domainLookupStart
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp domainLookupEnd
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp connectStart
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp connectEnd
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp secureConnectionStart
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp requestStart
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp finalResponseHeadersStart
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp firstInterimResponseStart
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp responseStart
;
readonly attribute DOMHighResTimeStamp responseEnd
;
readonly attribute unsigned long long transferSize
;
readonly attribute unsigned long long encodedBodySize
;
readonly attribute unsigned long long decodedBodySize
;
readonly attribute unsigned short responseStatus
;
readonly attribute RenderBlockingStatusType
renderBlockingStatus
;
readonly attribute DOMString contentType
;
[Default] object toJSON
();
};
A PerformanceResourceTiming
has an associated DOMString
initiator
type.
A PerformanceResourceTiming
has an associated DOMString
delivery
type.
A PerformanceResourceTiming
has an associated DOMString
requested
URL.
A PerformanceResourceTiming
has an associated DOMString
cache mode
(the empty string, "local
", or
"validated
").
A PerformanceResourceTiming
has an associated fetch timing info timing
info.
A PerformanceResourceTiming
has an associated response body info resource
info.
A PerformanceResourceTiming
has an associated status response status.
A PerformanceResourceTiming
has an associated
RenderBlockingStatusType
render-blocking status.
When toJSON
is called, run the default toJSON steps
for PerformanceResourceTiming
.
initiatorType
getter steps are to return the initiator type for this.
initiatorType
returns one of the following values:
"navigation"
, if the request is a navigation request;
"css"
, if the request is a result of processing a
CSS url() directive such as @import
url()
or background: url()
; [CSS-VALUES]
"script"
, if the request is a result of loading any
script (a classic
script
, a module script, or a Worker
).
"xmlhttprequest"
, if the request is a result of
processing an XMLHttpRequest
;
"fetch"
, if the request is the result of processing
the fetch
()
method;
"beacon"
, if the request is the result of processing
the sendBeacon
()
method; [BEACON]
"video"
, if the request is the result of processing
the video
element's poster
or src
.
"audio"
, if the request is the result of processing
the audio
element's src
.
"track"
, if the request is the result of processing
the track
element's src
.
"img"
, if the request is the result of processing
the img
element's src
or srcset
.
"image"
, if the request is the result of processing
the image
element. [SVG2]
"input"
, if the request is the result of processing
an input
element of type
image
.
"a"
, if the request is the result of processing an
a
element's download
or ping
.
"iframe"
, if the request is the result of processing
an iframe
's src
.
"frame"
, if the request is the result of loading a
frame
.
"other"
, if none of the above conditions match.
The setting of initiatorType
is done at the different places where
a resource timing entry is reported, such as the fetch standard.
deliveryType
getter steps are to return the delivery type for this.
deliveryType
returns one of the following values:
"cache"
, if the cache mode is not the empty
string.
""
, if none of the above
conditions match.
This is expected to be expanded by future updates to this specification, e.g. to describe consuming preloaded resources and prefetched navigation requests.
The workerStart
getter steps are to convert fetch
timestamp for this's timing info's final service worker start time and the relevant global
object for this. See HTTP fetch for more info.
The redirectStart
getter steps are to convert fetch
timestamp for this's timing info's redirect start time and the relevant global object for
this. See HTTP-redirect fetch for more info.
The redirectEnd
getter steps are to convert fetch
timestamp for this's timing info's redirect end time and the relevant global object for
this. See HTTP-redirect fetch for more info.
The fetchStart
getter steps are to convert fetch
timestamp for this's timing info's post-redirect start time and the relevant global object
for this. See HTTP fetch for more info.
The domainLookupStart
getter steps are to convert fetch
timestamp for this's timing info's final connection timing info's domain lookup start time and the relevant global object for
this. See Recording connection timing
info for more info.
The domainLookupEnd
getter steps are to convert fetch
timestamp for this's timing info's final connection timing info's domain lookup end time and the relevant global object for
this. See Recording connection timing
info for more info.
The connectStart
getter steps are to convert fetch
timestamp for this's timing info's final connection timing info's connection start time and the relevant global object
for this. See Recording connection timing
info for more info.
The connectEnd
getter steps are to convert fetch
timestamp for this's timing info's final connection timing info's connection end time and the relevant global object for
this. See Recording connection timing
info for more info.
The secureConnectionStart
getter steps are to convert
fetch timestamp for this's timing info's final connection timing info's secure connection start time and the relevant global object for
this. See Recording connection timing
info for more info.
The nextHopProtocol
getter steps are to isomorphic decode this's timing info's
final connection timing info's ALPN negotiated protocol. See Recording connection timing
info for more info.
Issue 221 suggests to remove support for nextHopProtocol, as it can reveal details about the user's network configuration.
The requestStart
getter steps are to convert fetch
timestamp for this's timing info's final network-request start time and the relevant global
object for this. See HTTP fetch for more info.
The firstInterimResponseStart
getter steps are to
convert fetch timestamp for this's timing info's first interim network-response start time and the relevant
global object for this. See HTTP fetch for more info.
The finalResponseHeadersStart
getter steps are to
convert fetch timestamp for this's timing info's final network-response start time and the relevant global
object for this. See HTTP fetch for more info.
The responseStart
getter steps are to return this's
firstInterimResponseStart
if it is not
0; Otherwise this's
finalResponseHeadersStart
.
The responseEnd
getter steps are to convert fetch
timestamp for this's timing info's end time and the relevant global object for this. See
fetch for more info.
The encodedBodySize
getter steps are to return
this's resource
info's encoded size.
The decodedBodySize
getter steps are to return
this's resource
info's decoded size.
The transferSize
getter steps are to perform the following
steps:
If this's cache
mode is "local
", then return 0.
If this's cache
mode is "validated
", then return 300.
Return this's response body info's encoded size plus 300.
The constant number added to transferSize
replaces exposing the
total byte size of the HTTP headers, as that may expose the
presence of certain cookies. See this
issue.
The responseStatus
getter steps are to return
this's response
status.
responseStatus
is determined in Fetch. For a cross-origin
no-cors request it
would be 0 because the response would be an opaque filtered
response.
The contentType
getter steps are to return this's
resource info's
content type.
The renderBlockingStatus
getter steps are to return
blocking
if
this's timing
info's render-blocking is true; otherwise
non-blocking
.
A user agent implementing PerformanceResourceTiming
would need
to include "resource"
in
supportedEntryTypes
. This allows developers
to detect support for Resource Timing.
WebIDLenum RenderBlockingStatusType
{
"blocking
",
"non-blocking
"
};
The values are defined as follows:
blocking
non-blocking
The user agent MAY choose to limit how many resources are included as
PerformanceResourceTiming
objects in the Performance
Timeline [PERFORMANCE-TIMELINE-2]. This section extends the
Performance
interface to allow controls over the number of
PerformanceResourceTiming
objects stored.
The recommended minimum number of PerformanceResourceTiming
objects is 250, though this may be changed by the user agent.
setResourceTimingBufferSize
can be
called to request a change to this limit.
Each ECMAScript global environment has:
PerformanceResourceTiming
objects that is initially empty.
WebIDLpartial interface Performance
{
undefined clearResourceTimings
();
undefined setResourceTimingBufferSize
(unsigned long maxSize);
attribute EventHandler onresourcetimingbufferfull
;
};
The Performance
interface is defined in [HR-TIME].
The method clearResourceTimings
runs the following steps:
PerformanceResourceTiming
objects in the
performance
entry buffer.
The setResourceTimingBufferSize
method runs the following
steps:
PerformanceResourceTiming
objects are to be removed from the
performance
entry buffer.
The attribute onresourcetimingbufferfull
is the event
handler for the resourcetimingbufferfull
event described
below.
To check if can add resource timing entry, run the following steps:
To add a PerformanceResourceTiming entry new entry into the performance entry buffer, run the following steps:
To copy secondary buffer, run the following steps:
PerformanceResourceTiming
in resource timing secondary
buffer.
To fire a buffer full event, run the following steps:
resourcetimingbufferfull
at
the Performance
object.
This means that if the resourcetimingbufferfull
event handler does not add more room in the buffer than it adds
resources to it, excess entries will be dropped from the buffer.
Developers should make sure that
resourcetimingbufferfull
event handlers call
clearResourceTimings
or extend the buffer
sufficiently (by calling
setResourceTimingBufferSize
).
As detailed in Fetch, requests for cross-origin resources are
included as PerformanceResourceTiming
objects in the
Performance
Timeline. If the timing
allow check algorithm fails for a cross-origin resource, the
entry will be an opaque entry. Such
entries have most of their attributes masked in order to prevent
leaking cross-origin data that isn't otherwise exposed. So, for an
opaque entry, the following
attributes will be set to zero:
redirectStart
,
redirectEnd
,
workerStart
,
domainLookupStart
,
domainLookupEnd
,
connectStart
,
connectEnd
,
requestStart
,
firstInterimResponseStart
,
finalResponseHeadersStart
,
responseStart
,
secureConnectionStart
,
transferSize
,
encodedBodySize
, and
decodedBodySize
. Further, the
nextHopProtocol
attribute will be set
to the empty string.
Server-side applications may return the Timing-Allow-Origin HTTP response header to allow the User Agent to fully expose, to the document origin(s) specified, the values of attributes that would have been zero due to those cross-origin restrictions.
The Timing-Allow-Origin HTTP response header field can be used to communicate a policy indicating origin(s) that may be allowed to see values of attributes that would have been zero due to the cross-origin restrictions. The header's value is represented by the following ABNF [RFC5234] (using List Extension, [RFC9110]):
Timing-Allow-Origin = 1#( origin-or-null / wildcard )
The sender MAY generate multiple Timing-Allow-Origin header fields. The recipient MAY combine multiple Timing-Allow-Origin header fields by appending each subsequent field value to the combined field value in order, separated by a comma.
The user agent MAY still enforce cross-origin restrictions and set transferSize, encodedBodySize, and decodedBodySize attributes to zero, even with Timing-Allow-Origin HTTP response header fields. If it does, it MAY also set deliveryType to "".
The Timing-Allow-Origin headers are processed in FETCH to compute the attributes accordingly.
The Timing-Allow-Origin header may arrive as part of a cached response. In case of cache revalidation, according to RFC 7234, the header's value may come from the revalidation response, or if not present there, from the original cached resource.
This section registers Timing-Allow-Origin as a Provisional Message Header.
Timing-Allow-Origin
Timing-Allow-Origin
Response Header
This section is non-normative.
The following graph illustrates the timing attributes defined by the PerformanceResourceTiming interface. Attributes in parenthesis may not be available when fetching cross-origin resources. User agents may perform internal processing in between timings, which allow for non-normative intervals between timings.
To mark resource timing given a fetch timing info timingInfo, a DOMString requestedURL, a DOMString initiatorType a global object global, a string cacheMode, a response body info bodyInfo, a status responseStatus, and an optional string deliveryType (by default, the empty string), perform the following steps:
PerformanceResourceTiming
object entry in
global's realm.
To setup the resource timing entry for
PerformanceResourceTiming
entry given DOMString
initiatorType, DOMString requestedURL, fetch timing info
timingInfo, a DOMString cacheMode, a response body info
bodyInfo, a status
responseStatus, and an optional DOMString deliveryType (by
default, the empty string), perform the following steps:
local
", or "validated
".
resource
", requestedURL, and the result of
converting timingInfo's
end time given global.
cache
".
To convert fetch timestamp given DOMHighResTimeStamp
ts and global object global, do the following:
This section is non-normative.
The PerformanceResourceTiming
interface exposes timing
information for a resource to any web page or worker that has
requested that resource. To limit the access to the
PerformanceResourceTiming
interface, the same origin policy is enforced by default and
certain attributes are set to zero, as described in HTTP fetch.
Resource providers can explicitly allow all timing information to be
collected for a resource by adding the Timing-Allow-Origin
HTTP response header, which specifies the domains that are allowed to
access the timing information.
This section is non-normative.
Statistical fingerprinting is a privacy concern where a malicious web
site may determine whether a user has visited a third-party web site
by measuring the timing of cache hits and misses of resources in the
third-party web site. Though the PerformanceResourceTiming
interface gives timing information for resources in a document, the
load event on resources can already measure timing to determine cache
hits and misses in a limited fashion, and the cross-origin
restrictions in HTTP Fetch prevent the leakage of any additional
information.
Thanks to Anne Van Kesteren, Annie Sullivan, Arvind Jain, Boris Zbarsky, Darin Fisher, Jason Weber, Jonas Sicking, James Simonsen, Karen Anderson, Kyle Scholz, Nic Jansma, Philippe Le Hegaret, Sigbjørn Vik, Steve Souders, Todd Reifsteck, Tony Gentilcore, William Chan, and Alex Christensen for their contributions to this work.
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