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name: sql-query-optimization description: A skill for optimizing SQL queries, focusing on PostgreSQL. It provides a checklist for query analysis, guidance on reading EXPLAIN plans, and patterns for common optimization problems like N+1 queries, JOINs, and pagination. Includes templates for benchmarking and recommending indexes. Use this skill when a user wants to improve the performance of a SQL query.

SQL Query Optimization (PostgreSQL)

This skill provides a structured workflow and resources for optimizing PostgreSQL queries.

Workflow

1. Understand the Query and Goal: Clarify what the query does and what the performance goal is (e.g., reduce latency, reduce resource usage).
2. Establish a Baseline: Use assets/benchmarking-template.md to record the current performance of the query.
3. Analyze and Optimize: Follow the references/checklist.md to analyze the query and identify optimization opportunities. This checklist will guide you through using the other reference documents.
4. Benchmark the Optimized Query: Record the performance of the new query in the benchmarking document to verify the improvement.
5. Present the Solution: Explain the changes made and the performance impact, using the before/after examples and benchmark results.

Bundled Resources

References (references/)

Use these documents as guided by the references/checklist.md.

• checklist.md: The main guide. Start here for any optimization task.
• explain-plan-analysis.md: Deep dive into reading EXPLAIN and EXPLAIN ANALYZE output.
• index-optimization.md: How to identify and create effective indexes.
• n-plus-one-queries.md: Guide to fixing N+1 query issues.
• join-optimization.md: Best practices for JOIN performance.
• subquery-vs-join.md: Comparison and trade-offs between subqueries and JOINs.
• pagination.md: Implementing efficient cursor-based (keyset) pagination.
• caching.md: Strategies for caching query results.
• examples.md: A collection of before-and-after optimization examples.

Assets (assets/)

• benchmarking-template.md: A template for documenting performance benchmarks. Copy this file to a new location for use.