thirdparty-pulse

How much does each third-party script cost your pages? Estimated bytes, requests and main-thread time per page and per vendor, checked against budgets.

Tag managers, chat widgets, pixels and embeds are usually the heaviest JavaScript on a static site, and nobody owns their weight. thirdparty-pulse reads your built HTML, finds every third-party script, inline vendor loader, iframe and asset, estimates its transfer size and main-thread cost from a table of common vendors (or the sizes you configure), and fails CI when a page goes over budget. It also catches the loading mistakes that make third parties expensive: synchronous scripts in <head>, the same script included twice, and missing or unused preconnects.

CLI, library and GitHub Action. Node.js 18+, zero runtime dependencies. Works on any static build output (Astro, Next.js output: 'export', Eleventy, Hugo, Jekyll, Docusaurus, VitePress, plain HTML) and runs offline: point it at the folder your build writes. By Louis Wright.

Features

Budgets per page: third-party script KB (maxKb, default 150), requests (maxRequests, default 10) and estimated main-thread time (maxMainThreadMs, default 250 ms, at msPerKb 2.5 ms per compressed KB).
Budgets per vendor: vendorBudgets caps a single vendor (e.g. {"google-tag-manager": 80}).
Weights: a built-in table of ~45 vendors (analytics, tag managers, chat, video, maps, payments, CDNs) with typical compressed sizes; override or add hosts with weights (host, URL glob or vendor id). Unknown hosts get unknownKb (30) and an info finding.
Loading: synchronous third-party scripts (high in <head>, medium in <body>), duplicate includes, heavy vendors that have a facade (YouTube, Maps, chat), early origins without preconnect, and preconnects that nothing uses.
Report: the JSON report lists every vendor/origin with its weight, requests and the number of pages it is on.

Scope

Performance cost only. This is not a privacy, cookie or consent inventory and makes no judgement about what vendors do with data. Weights are estimates from typical transfer sizes; the tool reads files and does not load the site, so confirm big numbers with a lab trace (Lighthouse, WebPageTest).

Rules

Rule	Default severity	What it means
`tp-budget-bytes`	high	Third-party script weight on a page exceeds the byte budget
`tp-vendor-budget`	high	A single vendor exceeds its configured byte budget
`tp-sync-script`	high	Third-party script loads synchronously (no async/defer) and blocks parsing
`tp-budget-main-thread`	medium	Estimated third-party main-thread time on a page exceeds the budget
`tp-budget-requests`	medium	Number of third-party requests on a page exceeds the budget
`tp-duplicate-script`	medium	The same third-party script or vendor loader is included more than once on a page
`tp-heavy-vendor`	low	Heavy vendor script (100 KB+) where a lighter alternative or facade usually exists
`tp-no-preconnect`	low	Early third-party origin has no preconnect / dns-prefetch hint
`tp-preconnect-unused`	low	preconnect to a third-party origin that the page never uses
`tp-unknown-weight`	info	Unrecognised third-party script; a default weight was assumed (set weights in config)
`allowlist-expired`	medium	An allowlist entry is past its `expires` date
`allowlist-unused`	info	An allowlist entry matched nothing

Install and run

npx thirdparty-pulse dist
npx thirdparty-pulse _site --max-kb 100 --max-requests 6
npx thirdparty-pulse public -f json > third-party.json

Pages are mapped to URLs the way static hosts serve them: index.html → /, blog/index.html → /blog/, about.html → /about.html (or /about with --clean-urls). Pass --base-url with your public URL, or let it be inferred from canonical / og:url tags. Meta-refresh redirect stubs and 404.html are skipped. X-Robots-Tag and Link headers are read from Netlify/Cloudflare _headers and vercel.json.

Sample output

thirdparty-pulse — https://example.com
1 page(s), 1 with third-party content, 6 vendor(s)/origin(s), heaviest page ~465 KB of third-party script

HIGH     index.html / loads ~465 KB of third-party script (budget 150 KB): intercom 200 KB, google-tag-manager 90 KB, meta-pixel 75 KB, hotjar 70 KB, cdn.example-widgets.net 30 KB [tp-budget-bytes]
HIGH     index.html:5 Synchronous third-party script https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id=GTM-ABC123 on / in <head> [tp-sync-script]
MEDIUM   index.html /: estimated ~1163 ms of third-party main-thread work (budget 250 ms) [tp-budget-main-thread]
MEDIUM   index.html:11 https://static.hotjar.com/c/hotjar-1.js is included 2 times on / [tp-duplicate-script]
LOW      index.html www.googletagmanager.com is requested from <head> on / without a preconnect [tp-no-preconnect]
LOW      index.html connect.facebook.net is requested from <head> on / without a preconnect [tp-no-preconnect]
LOW      index.html static.hotjar.com is requested from <head> on / without a preconnect [tp-no-preconnect]
LOW      index.html widget.intercom.io is requested from <head> on / without a preconnect [tp-no-preconnect]
LOW      index.html cdn.example-widgets.net is requested from <head> on / without a preconnect [tp-no-preconnect]
LOW      index.html:4 preconnect to fonts.unused-cdn.example on /, but nothing on the page loads from it [tp-preconnect-unused]
LOW      index.html:8 Intercom (~200 KB) on / [tp-heavy-vendor]
INFO     index.html:9 cdn.example-widgets.net script on / is not in the vendor table; assumed 30 KB [tp-unknown-weight]

2 high, 2 medium, 7 low, 1 info
✔ Passing (fail-on: none).

Options

thirdparty-pulse 1.0.0 — third-party script weight and load-cost report with budgets

Usage: thirdparty-pulse [site-dir] [options]

Site
      --base-url <url>        Public URL of the site, e.g. https://example.com (default: inferred from canonical/og:url)
      --include <globs>       Only check these pages (file or URL path globs, comma-separated)
      --exclude <globs>       Skip these pages
      --clean-urls            Pages are served without .html (about.html -> /about)
Budgets
      --max-kb <n>             Third-party script KB per page (default 150)
      --max-requests <n>       Third-party requests per page (default 10)
      --max-main-thread <ms>   Estimated third-party main-thread ms per page (default 250)

Common
  -c, --config <file>     JSON config (default: .thirdparty-pulse.json or "thirdpartyPulse" in package.json)
  -f, --format <fmt>      text (default) | json | sarif | markdown
      --json <file>       Also write a JSON report
      --sarif <file>      Also write SARIF 2.1.0
      --markdown <file>   Also write Markdown (e.g. for a job summary)
      --fail-on <sev>     critical | high | medium | low | info | none (default: high)
      --list-rules        Print rules and default severities
      --no-fixes          Hide fix suggestions in text output
      --no-color          Disable colours
  -v, --version / -h, --help

Exit codes: 0 = passed, 1 = findings at or above --fail-on, 2 = usage, config or read error.

Configuration and allowlist

Options can live in .thirdparty-pulse.json (or a "thirdpartyPulse" key in package.json, or --config <file>):

{
  "failOn": "medium",
  "severity": {
    "tp-budget-bytes": "low"
  },
  "allowlist": [
    {
      "rule": "tp-heavy-vendor",
      "subject": "intercom",
      "reason": "Support chat is a product requirement; facade planned",
      "expires": "2027-03-31"
    }
  ],
  "maxKb": 120,
  "maxMainThreadMs": 200,
  "vendorBudgets": {
    "google-tag-manager": 80
  },
  "weights": {
    "cdn.example-widgets.net": 45
  }
}

severity changes a rule's severity, or turns it "off".
allowlist entries suppress matching findings. Each needs a reason and matches on any combination of rule, file, subject (globs with *) and match (a substring of the message). Add expires (YYYY-MM-DD) so the exception is time-boxed: once it lapses the finding comes back along with an allowlist-expired finding (medium). Entries that no longer match anything are reported as allowlist-unused (info).

Config can also set baseUrl, include, exclude and cleanUrls. The config file is looked up in the site directory first, then in the current directory, so .thirdparty-pulse.json can live at your repository root. Other keys: maxKb, maxRequests, maxMainThreadMs, msPerKb, unknownKb, vendorBudgets (vendor id or host → KB) and weights (host, URL glob or vendor id → KB).

Output and exit codes

--format text (default), json, sarif (SARIF 2.1.0 for GitHub code scanning) or markdown (for job summaries and PR comments). --json, --sarif and --markdown write extra report files in the same run.
--fail-on <severity> sets the threshold (critical, high, medium, low, info, none; default high).
Exit codes: 0 passed, 1 findings at or above --fail-on, 2 usage, config or read error.

GitHub Action

permissions:
  contents: read
  security-events: write   # only needed for the SARIF upload
jobs:
  thirdparty-pulse:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@11d5960a326750d5838078e36cf38b85af677262 # v4
        with: { persist-credentials: false }
      - run: npm ci && npm run build   # produce the static site first
      - uses: MrLouisWright/thirdparty-pulse@v1
        with:
          path: dist
          fail-on: high
          sarif: thirdparty-pulse.sarif
      - uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v3
        if: always()
        with: { sarif_file: thirdparty-pulse.sarif }

Input	Description	Default
`path`	Built site directory (e.g. dist, public, _site)	`.`
`base-url`	Public URL of the site, e.g. https://example.com
`fail-on`	Failure threshold	`high`
`config`	Config file path
`sarif` / `json`	Write SARIF / JSON report to this path
`job-summary`	Add the Markdown report to the job summary	`true`
`args`	Extra CLI arguments

The action runs the bundled CLI with Node 20; it has no dependencies to install. Pin it to a commit SHA if your policy requires it.

Library

import { check, weightOf, vendorForUrl } from "thirdparty-pulse";
const report = check("dist", { maxKb: 120 });
report.info.vendors; // [{ id, vendor, category, kb, pages, requests }]
vendorForUrl("https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js").kb; // 90

Types are included.

Requirements

Node.js 18 or newer. Zero runtime dependencies.

Support

If this project is useful to you, you can support its development with a donation: Buy me a coffee. It helps keep these tools maintained, documented and free for everyone.

Credit (optional)

Free to use under MIT, no attribution required. If thirdparty-pulse helps you, a link back is appreciated:

<a href="https://louiswright.co.uk">Built with thirdparty-pulse by Louis Wright</a>

[![Built with thirdparty-pulse by Louis Wright](https://img.shields.io/badge/built%20with-thirdparty--pulse-blue)](https://louiswright.co.uk)

thirdparty-pulse