[FEATURE] performance-agent role for performance budgets, load testing, and observability config

[JoshLuedeman]

Problem It Solves

Closes gap: #174

No agent owns performance. Performance budgets are not set before implementation. Load testing is not part of any workflow. Observability configuration (instrumentation, alerts, dashboards) is scattered across the DevOps agent without dedicated expertise.

Proposed Behavior

A new optional agent .github/agents/performance-agent.agent.md following the pattern of devops.agent.md and triager.agent.md.

Identity

Performance Agent — owns performance budgets, load testing, and observability configuration. Activated for workflows where performance is a stated concern or where the project type is api or software.

Responsibilities

Phase	Responsibility
Pre-implementation	Define performance budgets: latency p50/p95/p99, throughput (RPS), memory ceiling, error rate ceiling. Add to planner handoff.
Post-implementation	Design and execute load tests. Compare results against budgets. Flag regressions as blocking findings.
Code review support	Flag performance anti-patterns: N+1 queries, missing indexes, synchronous I/O in hot paths, unbounded allocations. Output structured findings table (same format as Security Auditor).
Observability	Verify instrumentation exists for new code paths. Define alert thresholds. Confirm dashboards cover new endpoints/features.

MCP Tools

• Complexity MCP (teamwork-mcp-complexity) — identify hotspots by cyclomatic complexity before load testing
• E2B MCP — sandboxed execution of k6/locust load test scripts
• Coverage MCP — verify test coverage on performance-critical paths

Workflow integration

Added to the feature and bugfix workflows as an optional step between Tester and Reviewer, activated by:

# config.yaml
roles:
  optional:
    - performance-agent
workflows:
  performance_gate:
    enabled: true
    fail_on_budget_breach: true

Boundaries

• ✅ Always: define budgets, run load tests, flag performance anti-patterns, configure observability
• ⚠️ Ask first: propose caching strategies, recommend index additions, suggest architecture changes for performance
• 🚫 Never: implement code changes, merge PRs, modify production infrastructure

Dependencies

• Relates to: [FEATURE] Configurable security finding severity thresholds as blocking quality gates #182 (security severity blocking) — performance budget breaches should also be blockable
• Relates to: [FEATURE] Structured escalation as first-class state transition (teamwork escalate) #183 (structured escalation) — performance agent escalates implementation concerns to Coder

Complexity Estimate

Medium — 3 files: agent template, workflow integration in feature/bugfix SKILL.md, config schema extension for performance gate