[post] Profiling ZSH

content/blog/2022/01/profiling-zsh/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+---
+title: "Profiling ZSH"
+date: 2022-01-23T11:35:38-08:00
+draft: false
+tags: ["Tech", "ZSH"]
+---
+
+I've been hacking on my [dotfiles][dotfiles] a lot lately. One of the things
+that has bothered me about my shell setup is how long it takes zsh to start up.
+I did some research and found this [blog post][debug-zsh] from someone who
+undertook the same project.
+
+TIL, ZSH has a profiler built in. You can start it by calling the following.
+
+```zsh
+zmodload zsh/zprof
+```
+
+Then, once you're done, you call `zprof` to get a report that tells you where
+ZSH is spending most of its time. I put the line above at the top of my
+`.zshenv` and then called `zprof` at the end of my `.zshrc`.
+
+Over the years, my shell init has grown organically in various ways as needs
+arise. I add things, hack around to make things work, and don't generally pay
+attention to the overall structure of it. I've also frankly never spent a lot of
+time to learn the quirks of how ZSH behaves, and the most efficient ways of
+doing things. So, when I started this process, my init was taking close to a
+second. By the end, it was down to about 100 ms. Not bad for a couple hours of
+work. :)
+
+[dotfiles]: https://github.com/erynofwales/dotfiles
+[debug-zsh]: https://collectednotes.com/gillchristian/debugging-zsh-init-times