It has been a busy few months for the Container Timing API. After introducing the concept of measuring web components performance and detailing the native implementation in Blink, I have an update to share.
The API is moving to the next phase: a Chromium Origin Trial. I will also be presenting a year of work at the upcoming BlinkOn 21.
The Origin Trial #
After months of development and testing in Chromium, Container Timing is ready for real-world testing. We will run an Origin Trial from Chromium 148 to 153. You can register for the trial.
Until now, developers have had to manually enable the ContainerTiming feature flag in Chromium to test the new API. With the Origin Trial, early adopters can enable the API in production for a subset of their users by including the trial token. More information on how to use origin trial tokens.
Why is this important? We have been internally testing and evolving the API, but now we need feedback from real-world users. The Origin Trial will allow web developers to use the new API in production and experiment with it.
Please provide your feedback at the WICG Container Timing issue tracker.
- Does the API design meet your needs?
- How could it be changed to be more useful?
- Any corner cases that are not working as expected?
A year in review at BlinkOn 21 #
Next week, April 20th and 21st, the Chromium community will gather for BlinkOn 21. I’ll be giving a lightning talk summarizing the updates over the last year.
I will keep a close eye on the BlinkOn Slack channels during the event, so feel free to reach out to discuss the roadmap, implementation details, or any API feedback.
Wrapping up #
The Origin Trial is a key step toward finalizing the specification. Real-world feedback from the trial itself and from BlinkOn 21 discussions will feed into the standards working group discussions, and we expect the specification to evolve from there.
If you build with Container Timing during the trial, please share what you find: what works, what does not, and what is missing. That input will shape the final API.
You can also test locally by enabling the ContainerTiming feature flag in Chromium, while you wait for your Origin Trial registration to be approved.
Thanks #
This work is part of the collaboration between Bloomberg and Igalia. Thanks!
