Unified Cross-Platform Performance Metrics

This post details the foundational work for establishing unified cross-platform performance metrics at Slack. It defines 'Time to Visible' (TTV) and 'Time to Usable' (TTU) for app launch time, explaining their significance and how they reflect user perception. The post also outlines the challenges of disparate metrics across platforms, the benefits of a common vocabulary and data pipeline (using Thrift for specification), and the methodology for handling special cases (no cache, no new content, user intervention, different launch ways, upgrades) to ensure accurate tracking and analysis. The core contribution is the definition and initial implementation strategy for consistent performance measurement across Desktop, iOS, and Android.