🩺 Lambda Doctor

Diagnose and fix AWS Lambda cold start performance issues.

Static analysis CLI that scans your Node.js Lambda project and tells you exactly what's slowing down your cold starts — and how to fix it.

Quick Start · What It Checks · Real-World Results · CLI Options

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The Problem

Your Lambda cold starts take 3+ seconds. You've read every blog post. You know you should "use smaller packages" and "bundle your code" — but which packages are actually heavy? Are your imports tree-shakeable? Is your AWS SDK setup optimal?

Lambda Doctor runs a single command and gives you a prioritized, actionable report with estimated millisecond savings for each issue.

Quick Start

npm install -g lambda-doctor

lambda-doctor analyze ./my-lambda

That's it. You get a full diagnosis in seconds.

What It Checks

Analyzer	What it does	Severity
Bundle Size	Scans node_modules, reports total size and top 10 largest packages	🔴 >50MB, ⚠️ >10MB
Heavy Dependencies	Flags known heavy packages (moment, lodash, axios, mongoose, etc.) and dev tools in production	🔴 dev tools in prod, ⚠️ heavy deps
Import Analysis	Detects import * (tree-shaking blocker) and top-level heavy imports	⚠️ per pattern
AWS SDK	Detects v2 usage, incomplete v2→v3 migration, unnecessary clients (e.g. SSO in Lambda)	🔴 v2, ⚠️ mixed
Bundler Detection	Checks for esbuild/webpack/rollup/tsup — no bundler = biggest improvement opportunity	🔴 no bundler

Real-World Results

We tested Lambda Doctor against popular open-source serverless projects:

Project	⭐ Stars	Critical	Warnings	Est. Improvement
webiny/webiny-js	7.9k	1	132	~2.7s
aws-powertools/powertools-lambda-typescript	1.8k	1	3	~920ms
anomalyco/demo-notes-app (SST Guide)	195	1	2	~542ms
adamjq/production-ready-serverless-nestjs	40	0	5	~350ms

Note: For large monorepos with frontend/IaC code alongside Lambda functions, use --exclude to scope the analysis to your backend packages: lambda-doctor analyze . --exclude "packages/app-*/**,packages/frontend/**"

Example: NestJS Lambda API

Running against adamjq/production-ready-serverless-nestjs — a production-ready NestJS GraphQL API on AWS Lambda with Prisma and Webpack:

🩺 Lambda Doctor — Diagnosis Report
   Target: ./production-ready-serverless-nestjs

🔍 Diagnostics

⚠️ WARNING Heavy dependency: @nestjs/core (package.json)
   NestJS is a heavy framework (5MB+). Decorator metadata and DI container add cold start overhead.
   → Use lighter patterns for Lambda: plain handlers or lambda-api.
   ⏱  Est. improvement: ~150ms

⚠️ WARNING Heavy dependency: express (package.json)
   Express has 30+ dependencies. Heavy for a single Lambda function.
   → Use lambda-api (zero deps) or direct API Gateway event parsing.
   ⏱  Est. improvement: ~20ms

⚠️ WARNING Top-level import of heavy package "@nestjs/core" (src/lambda.ts:1)
   "@nestjs/core" is imported at the top level in src/lambda.ts.
   → Consider lazy-loading: move the import inside the function that uses it.
   ⏱  Est. improvement: ~75ms

💡 INFO Bundler detected: webpack
   Found bundler setup: packages=[webpack], configs=[webpack.config.js].
   → Ensure your bundler is configured for tree-shaking and minification.

💡 INFO Project is not using ESM
   → Consider setting "type": "module" in package.json for better tree-shaking support.
   ⏱  Est. improvement: ~20ms

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Summary: 0 critical | 5 warnings | 2 info

🚀 Total estimated cold start improvement: ~350ms

Example: SST Demo Notes App

Running against anomalyco/demo-notes-app — the official SST Guide demo app:

🩺 Lambda Doctor — Diagnosis Report
   Target: ./demo-notes-app

🔍 Diagnostics

🔴 CRITICAL No bundler detected
   No bundler (esbuild, webpack, rollup, etc.) was found in this project.
   → Add esbuild (fastest) or webpack to bundle your Lambda function.
   ⏱  Est. improvement: ~500ms

⚠️ WARNING Wildcard import of "uuid" prevents tree-shaking (packages/functions/src/create.ts:1)
   → Use named imports: import { specificFunction } from "uuid"
   ⏱  Est. improvement: ~20ms

⚠️ WARNING Top-level import of heavy package "uuid" (packages/functions/src/create.ts:1)
   → Use crypto.randomUUID() (built-in Node 18+).
   ⏱  Est. improvement: ~2.5ms

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Summary: 1 critical | 2 warnings | 1 info

🚀 Total estimated cold start improvement: ~542.5ms

How It Works

lambda-doctor analyze ./my-lambda
         │
         ▼
┌─────────────────────┐
│   Read package.json  │
│   Scan node_modules  │
│   Parse source files │
└────────┬────────────┘
         │
         ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│  5 Analyzers (run in parallel)  │
│  ├─ Bundle Size                 │
│  ├─ Heavy Dependencies          │
│  ├─ Import Analysis             │
│  ├─ AWS SDK                     │
│  └─ Bundler Detection           │
└────────┬────────────────────────┘
         │
         ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│  Diagnosis Report               │
│  ├─ Prioritized by severity     │
│  ├─ Actionable recommendations  │
│  └─ Estimated ms savings each   │
└─────────────────────────────────┘

All analyzers run in parallel and never crash — if one fails, you still get results from the others.

CLI Options

# Console output (default)
lambda-doctor analyze ./my-lambda

# JSON output (for CI/CD pipelines)
lambda-doctor analyze ./my-lambda --format json

# Add custom exclude patterns
lambda-doctor analyze ./my-lambda --exclude "scripts/**,packages/frontend/**"

# Disable default excludes (scan everything including tests)
lambda-doctor analyze ./my-lambda --no-default-excludes

Smart Defaults

Lambda Doctor automatically excludes test and build files that don't run in Lambda:

__tests__/  *.test.*  *.spec.*  test/  tests/
cypress/  coverage/  dist/  build/  cdk.out/  .serverless/

You can override this with --no-default-excludes or add more patterns with --exclude.

Exit Codes

• 0 — No critical issues found
• 1 — Critical issues detected (useful for CI gates)

Programmatic API

import { analyze } from 'lambda-doctor';

const report = await analyze({
  targetPath: './my-lambda',
  format: 'json',
  exclude: ['scripts/**', 'frontend/**'],
});

console.log(report.summary);
// { totalIssues: 7, critical: 1, warnings: 5, info: 1, estimatedTotalImpactMs: 820 }

Requirements

• Node.js >= 18

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please check out the issues page.

git clone https://github.com/ozers/lambda-doctor.git
cd lambda-doctor
npm install
npm run build
npm test

License

MIT

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Built by Ozer — because staring at CloudWatch cold start metrics at 2am shouldn't be a regular thing.