05 FEATURE: Harden performance for large files and large workspaces

[bryan-shea]

Summary

Improve performance and responsiveness when Annotative is used in large files, large workspaces, or projects with many annotations.

Problem

Performance issues reduce trust fast, especially in developer tools. Large files and heavy annotation usage are realistic scenarios and should not feel brittle.

Goal

Make loading, filtering, rendering, and navigation more reliable under heavier workloads.

Scope

In scope:

• benchmark current performance paths
• identify bottlenecks in filtering, grouping, rendering, navigation, and storage operations
• implement focused optimizations
• add regression tests
• document limits and edge cases where helpful

Out of scope:

• hosted indexing
• cloud processing
• speculative architecture rewrites without evidence

Dependencies / notes

This feature should focus on measured performance work, not ornamental refactors.