Exploratory HTTP Framework Benchmark

Date: 2026-07-23

Scope

This benchmark compares Agentix, Express, and NestJS-on-Express only at an identical HTTP boundary. It does not measure the preregistered coding-agent maintenance hypothesis and does not replace the Agentix-versus-plain corpus.

Each target starts a real loopback server and exposes POST /echo:

• { "value": 7 } returns HTTP 200 and the same success envelope;
• malformed JSON or any other shape returns HTTP 400 and the same validation envelope.

The runner starts all three targets outside hot-request timers, assigns one keep-alive client to each target, consumes each complete response, and rotates order using seeded blocks that contain all three stacks. Cold-ready and memory observations run in fresh child processes that dynamically import only the selected target.

Frozen exploratory run

seed: agentix-http-frameworks-exploratory-v1-2026-07-23
warmups per HTTP metric and stack: 10
measured observations per HTTP metric and stack: 100
fresh child-process observations per stack: 5

Metrics:

• valid loopback request latency;
• invalid loopback request latency;
• fresh-child dynamic-import-to-listening readiness;
• ready-process RSS;
• ready-process maximum RSS.

Raw measurements, failures, environment identity, dependency versions, Git state, lockfile hash, and source hash are retained. Summaries use R-7 quartiles, median, IQR, p95, and range.

Interpretation limits

This measures configured stacks, not abstract framework cores. NestJS uses Express underneath. Network loopback and JSON costs can dominate small differences, and a one-route microbenchmark cannot predict a non-trivial application’s performance or an AI agent’s maintenance efficiency. All results are exploratory and confirmatory-ineligible.

Results

The frozen exploratory run completed with 705 raw samples and zero unavailable measurements on Node 24.16.0, macOS arm64, an Apple M4 Max (16 logical CPUs), and 48 GiB of memory.

Express had the lowest median hot-request latency. Agentix’s median valid and invalid latency was respectively about 56% and 51% higher than Express, while NestJS-on-Express was between them. Agentix had the lowest cold-ready time and ready memory: Express used about 17% more ready RSS and NestJS about 49% more; NestJS cold readiness was about 3.5 times Agentix’s.

These are observations for this echo configuration, not a general framework ranking. In particular, the Agentix target performs its declared command dispatch and schema validation, while the Express and Nest targets use the minimal finite-number check required by the endpoint contract. The host was not dedicated or process-isolated, so unrelated background activity may have added noise despite the balanced request order.

Raw evidence:

• http-frameworks-exploratory-v1-2026-07-23.json
• raw file SHA-256: d6ea63a0a57100a62ce810ed4c828d2c19e0e4f546e2a7e32e6f541d26d56ca4
• measurement-plan SHA-256: c90319d39da34a8872e986a66c632718a52278da883e7acfb22abecaf94c1664
• comparison-source SHA-256: efcb6db8dfb4221f071488fc17adb80e3ba5bc594a79d3367f5b3bcf00a09d08
• package-lock SHA-256: 855bc97725ce43b3dbbfae4b7fa63f4ebd12c8365783a8654e86742769f46085

The report records Git commit 9ab2948002193426d9f0b0eb6d4d0ba8b87ed60a with a dirty worktree because the new comparison source had not been committed. The comparison-source and lock hashes bind the exact measured implementation and dependencies, but a clean committed rerun would be stronger evidence.